Excerpt from The Voyages of the Norsemen to America The original material on which our knowledge of the Vinland voyages is based is of very limited extent. Every term and sentence in the sagas which has any bearing on these voyages has been carefully examined and discussed. All evidence that has come to light, whether in Europe or in America, has been scrutinized by competent critics. It might, indeed, seem that the whole field had been covered, and that the last word on the problems involved had been said. I found, however, after having studied the more important works on the subject, that justice had not been done to it from the point of view of the navigator. When this book was planned, no work existed which gave a comprehensive presentation of the means and methods of navigation possessed by the Norsemen, and of the bearing of these features on the question of the discovery of America. Dr. Nansen's book, In Northern Mists, which was published while the present volume was in preparation, dealt rather fully with this aspect of the matter, but did not contain any description or illustrations of the coasts of America likely to have been visited by the Norsemen. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.