for such vestiges, have been led astray because they have failed to distinguish between the different conditions of proof in Greenland and in Vinland. As Mr. Laing forcibly put the case, nearly half a century ago, "Greenland was a colony with communications, trade, civil and ecclesiastical establishments, and a considerable population," for more than four centuries. "Vinland was only visited by flying parties of woodcutters, remaining at the utmost two or three winters, but never settling there permanently.... To expect here, as in Greenland, material proofs to corroborate the documentary proofs, is weakening the latter by linking them to a sort of evidence which, from the very nature of the case,--the temporary visits of a ship's crew,--cannot exist in Vinland, and, as in the case of Greenland, come in to support them."[260] [Footnote 258: See _Pickwick Papers_, chap. xi. I am indebted to Mr. Tillinghast, of Harvard University Library, for calling my attention to a letter from Rev. John Lathrop, of Boston, to Hon. John Davis, August 10, 1809, containing George Washington's opinion of the Dighton inscription. When President Washington visited Cambridge in the fall of 1789, he was shown about the college buildings by the president and fellows of the university. While in the museum he was observed to "fix his eye" upon a full-size copy of the Dighton inscription made by the librarian, James Winthrop. Dr. Lathrop, who happened to be standing near Washington, "ventured to give the opinion which several learned men had entertained with respect to the origin of the inscription." Inasmuch as some of the characters were thought to resemble "oriental" characters, and inasmuch as the ancient Phoenicians had sailed outside of the Pillars of Hercules, it was "conjectured" that some Phoenician vessels had sailed into Narragansett bay and up the Taunton river. "While detained by winds, or other causes now unknown, the people, it has been conjectured, made the inscription, now to be seen on the face of the rock, and which we may suppose to be a record of their fortunes or of their fate."