Thus it appears to be an authenticated fact that the Northmen had a settlement or settlements in New England six hundred years previous to the arrival of English settlers. It is probable that their Vinland settlements consisted chiefly of trading and lumbering establishments. The first explorers “loaded their vessels with timber” when ready to return to Greenland, where the lack of timber was so great that the settlers found it necessary to use stone for building material. The Vinland timber-trade became naturally an important business, but neither Greenland nor Iceland could furnish emigrants to occupy the country. Traces of the old Norse settlements in Greenland are still visible in the ruins of stone buildings. Near the Bay of Igalito, in Greenland, are remains of a stone church. Vinland was covered with great forests, and there it was much easier and cheaper to build houses of wood. The Norse records speak also of a region south of Vinland to which voyages were made. It is called Huitramannaland. Indeed, two great regions farther south are mentioned. There is a romantic story of one Biorn Asbrandson, a noble Icelander, who, being crossed in his matrimonial desires, went away toward Vinland; but his vessel was driven much farther south by a storm. Nothing was heard of him until part of the crew of a Norse vessel, on a voyage to Huitramannaland, were captured by the natives, among whom Biorn was living as a chief. He discovered an old acquaintance among the prisoners whom he found means to release. He talked freely with his old friend of the past, and of Iceland, but would not leave his savage friends. How little we know of what has been in the past ages, notwithstanding our many volumes of history! We listen attentively to what gets a wide and brilliant publication, and either fail to hear or doubt every thing else. If these Norse adventurers had sailed from England or Spain, those countries being what they were in the time of Columbus, their colonies would not have failed, through lack of men and means to support and extend them, and the story of their discoveries would have been told in every language and community of the civilized world. But the little communities in Iceland and Greenland were very different from rich and powerful nations. Instead of being in direct communication with the great movements of human life in Europe, recorded in what we read as history, they were far off in the Northern Ocean, and, out of Norway, almost unknown to Europe. Afterward, when the name and discoveries of Columbus had taken control of thought and imagination, it became difficult for even intelligent men, with the old Norse records before them, to see the claims of the Northmen. B. THE WELSH IN AMERICA. The story of the emigration to America of Prince Madoc, or Madog, is told in the old Welsh books as follows: