Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, December 1899: Vol. LVI, November, 1899 to April, 1900Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, December 1899: Vol. LVI, November, 1899 to April, 1900
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
On the other side of the road we found an end of an old path
paved with small stones, running from the house in the hillside
along the edge of the old river bank down to a kind of promontory
which in olden time, when the water stood much higher than it now
does, seems to have served as a landing place. In the middle of
this path, which was from about six to ten inches under the
surface, was a hollow as trodden down by the feet of men and
(perhaps) horses. This path is very like Icelandic paths, such as
may still be found in many places in Iceland. But as we in some
places in this path found some bricks between the stones which
formed its pavement, it must be regarded as doubtful whether it
is Scandinavian. The bricks seem rather to speak for a
post-Columbian origin, though the whole path is so primitive that
it hardly can be suggested that so advanced a people as the first
post-Columbian colonists should have made such a path. To settle
the question whether it could belong to those colonists must be
left to American scholars. This path seems, at any rate, to have
been made by the same people who built the house in the hillside,
so either both of them must be regarded as post-Columbian or they
both are Scandinavian. Another path runs from this landing place
in a westerly direction along the old river bank, where it stops
very abruptly on a certain spot a very short distance east of the
supposed "Thorfinn's house." As I could not find any other reason
for its stopping on this spot than that near it stood a building,
I examined the river bank beside it, and here I found the earth,
about eight inches under the surface, mixed with charcoal, which
could indicate that some refuse from a house had been thrown
there. This seems to lead to the conclusion that there at the end
of this path really has stood a building, of which we could not
now expect to find any traces, or even a building constructed of
turf only (turf walls), which also might have wholly disappeared,
as earth walls on an elevated ground like this perhaps might have
blown away.
The result of these researches is briefly, according to my
opinion, this: As far as concerns the construction, both the
house in the hillside and the two paths, or the two branches of
the path, could be of Scandinavian origin, but I am not so well
acquainted with the life and customs of the first post-Columbian
colonists as to be able to decide whether they could not have
been made by them. This, therefore, must be left to American
scholars.
Very respectfully yours,
VALTYR GUDMUNDSSON.
CAMBRIDGE, MASS., _July 16, 1896_.
_From Mr. Erlingsson's Report._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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