This presumption is supported by what is said about the climate of Vinland, though it must be borne in mind that general statements about climate are apt to be very loose and misleading. We are told that it seemed to Leif's people that cattle would be able to pass the winter out of doors there, for there was no frost and the grass was not much withered.[214] On the other hand, Thorfinn's people found the winter severe, and suffered from cold and hunger.[215] Taken in connection with each other, these two statements would apply very well to-day to our variable winters on the coast southward from Cape Ann. The winter of 1889-90 in Cambridge, for example, might very naturally have been described by visitors from higher latitudes as a winter without frost and with grass scarcely withered. Indeed, we might have described it so ourselves. On Narragansett and Buzzard's bays such soft winter weather is still more common; north of Cape Ann it is much less common. The severe winter (_magna hiems_) is of course familiar enough anywhere along the northeastern coast of America. [Footnote 214: "Thar var sva godhr landskostr at thvi er theim syndist, at thar mundi eingi fenadhr fodhr thurfa a vetrum; thar kvomu eingi frost a vetrum, ok litt renudhu thar groes," i. e. "tanta autem erat terrae bonitas, ut inde intelligere esset, pecora hieme pabulo non indigere posse, nullis incidentibus algoribus hiemalibus, et graminibus parum flaccescentibus." Rafn, p. 32.] [Footnote 215: "Thar voru their um vetrinn; ok gjoerdhist vetr mikill, en ekki fyri unnit ok gjoerdhist illt til matarins, ok tokust af veidhirnar," i. e. "hic hiemarunt; cum vero magna incideret hiems, nullumque provisum esset alimentum, cibus coepit deficere capturaque cessabat," Id. p. 174.] [Sidenote: Probable situation of Vinland.] On the whole, we may say with some confidence that the place described by our chroniclers as Vinland was situated somewhere between Point Judith and Cape Breton; possibly we may narrow our limits and say that it was somewhere between Cape Cod and Cape Ann. But the latter conclusion is much less secure than the former. In such a case as this, the more we narrow our limits the greater our liability to error.[216] While by such narrowing, moreover, the question may acquire more interest as a bone of contention among local antiquarians, its value for the general historian is not increased.