The fate of the Greenland colony has been variously explained; by a change in the climate, by the Black Death, or by the attacks of an army of Eskimos. But the climate is exactly the same now as it was then, the Black Death broke out in Norway after intercourse ceased, and the Eskimos had always been living with the Norsemen, having been in Greenland many centuries before the Norsemen came. Moreover, the Eskimos could not assemble and attack in large numbers[24]. The disappearance of the colony after a lapse of two centuries is fully accounted for by the neglect of the Norwegians to send ships. The colony could not exist without that help. Those settlers who remained gradually died off, the survivors merging in the Eskimo population. The vestiges confirm the narratives of the Sagas. There are the stone church at Kakortak, the foundations of churches and homesteads, the bones of oxen and goats in the refuse heaps. Two grave-stones have also been found. One marked the place where the body of Hroaldr Kolgrimsson rested. It was found in 1831, two miles north of Frederiksthal. The other is a stone with a runic inscription, found nine miles from Julianshaab in 1830:-- “Vigdis, daughter of Magnus, rests here. May God gladden her soul[25].” The history of the first period of Arctic discovery was thus closed in mystery. Vigdis, daughter of Greenland, seems to speak to us across the centuries. Her people achieved a great work:--the coast of Finmarken to the White Sea discovered; then Iceland, and finally the whole west coast of Greenland from Cape Farewell to Smith Sound, Baffin Land, Labrador, and Newfoundland. We see in the qualities of these Norsemen all that is required for the completion of the great work--energy, indomitable perseverance, and dauntless courage combined with practical enthusiasm. Such qualities were needed and were not wanting to achieve the glorious work done by the Norsemen. Such qualities were needed and have not been wanting in the English race--which received a large strain of Norman blood, and produced the chief Arctic explorers of modern times--to complete what was so well begun in those far-off days of old. CHAPTER VII NICHOLAS OF LYNN. ZENO. MEDIEVAL NAUTICAL INSTRUMENTS There was dwelling in Oxford, when Chaucer was young, a scholar known as courteous Nicholas. He lodged with an old carpenter who had married a very young wife. He had a room to himself, and was devoted to the study of astrology and mathematics. On shelves at his bed head he had several books, including the _Almagest_ of Ptolemy, as well as an astrolabe, and _angrim_ stones used in numeration.