LOST COLONIES OF NORTHMEN AND PORTUGUESE.
43
Island theory, in order to explain the presence of Eskimos so far south, have started the hypothesis that the Skraellings at the beginning of the eleventh century inhabited the eastern coast of North America as far south as Rhode Island, but were driven into the Arctic regions by the races now found on the sea-coast. Not a particle of evidence can be adduced
to support this idea, and the authorities cited by Rafn disprove it, for an Icelandic geographer describes the more northern country, Furderstrands, as too cold for human habitations, and as bounded on the south by Skraellingsland. Their home, therefore, was then, as it still is, Labrador.
From the various accounts given by Rafn, I prepared a map, show-
