“Eyktar-stadr. m. _the place of the sun at half-past three_, P.M.; meira var, thar jafndaegri enn á Graenlandi edr Íslandi, sól hafdi thar eyktar-stad ok dagmála-stad um skamdegi, Fb. [Flateyjar bók] 1, 539,—this passage refers to the discovery of America; but in A. A. [Antiquitates Americanæ], l. c., it is wrongly explained as denoting the shortest day nine hours long, instead of seven; it follows that the latitude fixed by the editors of A. A. [Antiquitates Americanæ] is too far to the south.” “Dagr, m. ... a day, ... 5. the day is in Icel. divided according to the position of the sun above the horizon; these fixed traditional marks are called dags-mörk, _day-marks_, and are substitutes for the hours of modern times, viz. ris-mál or midr-morgun, dag-mál, há-degi, mid-degi or mid-mundi, nón, midr-aptan, nátt-mál.” “Stadr, m., gen. stadar, dat. stad, and older stadi, pl. stadir: ... a ‘stead,’ place, abode.”—An Icelandic-English dictionary based on the MS. collections of the late Richard Cleasby, enlarged and completed by Gudbrand Vigfusson, M. A. Oxford, 1874. [53] Thormod Torfason, or Torfæus, as his name is Latinized, in the addenda of his History of Ancient Vinland (Historia Vinlandiæ Antiquæ), printed at Copenhagen, in 1705, explains the meaning of the words, saying that the sun in Vinland, on the shortest day, was six hours above the horizon, which would imply that this land lay between the fifty-eighth and sixty-first parallels of north latitude. “Torfæus confirms his interpretation by the authority of Arngrim Jonas, a learned Icelander who flourished at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century, and who was deemed a profound astronomer. In his ‘History of Greenland,’ he thus renders the passage we are considering: ‘There is in Vinland no winter, no cold, no frost as in Iceland or Greenland; inasmuch as the sun, on the very day of the winter solstice (they had no dials there), passes about six hours above the horizon.’ Having cited this passage from Arngrim Jonas, Torfæus proceeds: ‘This meaning I had long ago given this passage, first on the authority (if I rightly understood him) of Bryniulf Sveinson, the most learned of all the bishops of Skalkholt, to whom I was sent, while yet a youth, in the year 1662, with royal letters from my gracious master, King Frederick the Third, for the purpose of learning the genuine signification of the more difficult ancient words and phrases; and, then, from the necessary correspondence of the time of sunset with that of sunrise.’”—(The Discovery of America by the Northmen. By E. Everett. North American Review. January, 1838. vol. xlvi. pp. 179-188. _Vide_ Historia Vinlandiæ Antiquæ, seu partis Americæ Septentrionalis. Per Thormodum Torfæum. Havniæ, 1705. Addenda.)