The appearance of men called _Indians_ on the coasts of Germany under the Othos and Frederic Barbarossa in the tenth and twelfth centuries, and as Cornelius Nepos (in his _Fragments_),[FI] Pomponius Mela,[FJ] and Pliny[FK] relate, when Quintus Metellus Celer was Proconsul in Gaul, may be explained by similar effects of oceanic currents and by the long continuance of north-westerly winds. A king of the Boii, or, as others say, of the Suevi, gave these stranded dark-coloured men to Metellus Celer. Gomara[FL] regards these Indian subjects of the King of the Boii as natives of Labrador. He writes, _Si ya no fuesen de Tierra del Labrador, y los tuviesen los Romanos por Indianos engañados en el color_. It may be inferred that the appearance of Esquimaux on the northern shores of Europe was more frequent in earlier times, for we learn from the investigations of Bask and Finn Magnusen, that this race had spread in the eleventh and twelfth century in considerable numbers, under the name of Skrälingers, from Labrador as far south as the Good Vinland, _i.e._ the shore of Massachussets and Connecticut.[FM] As the winter cold of the most northern part of Scandinavia is ameliorated by the action of the Gulf Stream, which carries American tropical fruits (as cocoa-nuts, seeds of _Mimosa scandens_ and _Anacardium occidentale_) beyond 62° north lat.; so also Iceland enjoys from time to time the genial influence of the diffusion of the warm waters of the Gulf Stream far to the northward. The sea coasts of Iceland, like those of the Faroe Isles, receive a large number of trunks of trees, driven thither from America; and this drift-wood, which formerly came in greater abundance, was used for the purposes of building, and cut into boards and laths. The fruits of tropical plants collected on the Icelandic shores, especially between Raufarhaven and Vapnafiord, show that the movement of the water is from a southerly direction.[FN] Footnote 25: p. 10.—“_Lecideæ and other Lichens._” In northern regions, the absence of plants is compensated for by the covering of _Bœomyces roseus_, _Cenomyce rangiferinus_, _Lecidea muscorum_, _Lecidea icmadophila_, and other cryptogamia which are spread over the earth, and which may be said to prepare the way for the growth of grasses and other herbaceous plants. In the tropical world, where mosses and lichens are only observed to abound in shady places, some few oily plants supply the place of the lowly lichen. Footnote 26: p. 11.—“_The Care of Animals yielding milk._—_Ruins of the Aztek fortress._” The two oxen already named, _Bos americanus_ and _Bos moschatus_, are peculiar to the northern part of the American continent. But the natives— _Queis neque mos, neque cultus erat, nec jungere tauros_ Virg. Æn. i. 316.