This page needs to be proofread.

THE ZENO MAP 139 THE ZENO MAP A glance at the Zeno map (Fig. 19) discloses a good approxima- tion to the general outline, trend, and taper of Greenland, with certain features which imply information. For a long time it was thought that no earlier source existed from which this could have been drawn by Zeno the compiler. But of later years other fif- teenth-century maps showing Greenland have been discovered in various libraries, notably four by Nordenskiold, 14 out of which or out of others like them Zeno could certainly have gleaned all that he needed for judicious copying. In particular the maps of Donnus Nicolaus German us (1466 to 1474, or a little later; e. g. Fig. 17), elaborated from the map of Claudius Clavus (1427; Fig. 16), seem to supply the chief features of the Zeno exhibition. 15 Sharing an error common to Clavus and all successors of his school, Zeno con- nected Greenland to Europe. He also represented its eastern coast as habitable at the extreme upper end. It is true that a visitor to the real surviving Greenland settlement about Ericsfiord prob- ably would not learn the facts about these matters, so that his misinformation is no disproof of the visits of the older Zeni to that country. On the other hand, it would be difficult to point to any convincing evidence that either of them was ever there. Kohl suggests 16 that the fisherman's story may be a mere re- flection of the general American knowledge of Greenlanders, and this might call for the presence of one of the Zeni in Green- land to hear the story. But, if the Norse of Greenland knew anything about Newfoundland or Labrador, they could hardly have credited and passed along these word pictures of cities, libraries, and kings. The only thing like internal corroboration is in the geography of Estotiland and Drogio. 14 A. E. Nordenskiold, Periplus, text maps 34 and 35, on pp. 85 and 87, and PI. 32; idem: Facsimile-Atlas, PI. 30. The first three maps are also reproduced in idem: Bidrag till Nordens aldsta Kartografi, Stockholm, 1892, Pis. 3, 1,2. 18 Joseph Fischer: The Discoveries of the Norsemen in America with Special Re- lation to Their Early Cartographical Representation, transl. by B. H. Soulsby, London, 1903, pp. 71 and 72 and Pis. 1-6. w J. G. Kohl: A History of the Discovery of the East Coast of North Aincncu, Particularly the Coast of Maine, from the Northmen in 900 to the Charter of Gilbert in 1578 (Documentary History of the State of Maine, Vol. l), Colls. Maine Hist. Soc., 2d Ser., Portland, 1869, p. 105.