The New World as well as the Old appears to have been in a state of climatic stress during the first half of the fourteenth century. According to Pettersson, Greenland furnishes an example of this. At first the inhabitants of that northland were fairly prosperous and were able to approach from Iceland without much hindrance from the ice. Today the North Atlantic Ocean northeast of Iceland is full of drift ice much of the time. The border of the ice varies from season to season, but in general it extends westward from Iceland not far from the Arctic circle and then follows the coast of Greenland southward to Cape Farewell at the southern tip and around to the western side for fifty miles or more. Except under exceptional circumstances a ship cannot approach the coast until well northward on the comparatively ice-free west coast. In the old Sagas, however, nothing is said of ice in this region. The route from Iceland to Greenland is carefully described. In the earliest times it went from Iceland a trifle north of west so as to approach the coast of Greenland after as short an ocean passage as possible. Then it went down the coast in a region where approach is now practically impossible because of the ice. At that time this coast was icy close to the shore, but there is no sign that navigation was rendered difficult as is now the case. Today no navigator would think of keeping close inland. The old route also went _north_ of the island on which Cape Farewell is located, although the narrow channel between the island and the mainland is now so blocked with ice that no modern vessel has ever penetrated it. By the thirteenth century, however, there appears to have been a change. In the Kungaspegel or _Kings' Mirror_, written at that time, navigators are warned not to make the east coast too soon on account of ice, but no new route is recommended in the neighborhood of Cape Farewell or elsewhere. Finally, however, at the end of the fourteenth century, nearly 150 years after the Kungaspegel, the old sailing route was abandoned, and ships from Iceland sailed directly southwest to avoid the ice. As Pettersson says: ... At the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century the European civilization in Greenland was wiped out by an invasion of the aboriginal population. The colonists in the Vesterbygd were driven from their homes and probably migrated to America leaving behind their cattle in the fields. So they were found by Ivar Bardsson, steward to the Bishop of Gardar, in his official journey thither in 1342.