Italian and given to the press. Leander Cosco was the translator, and Eucharius Silber or Argenteus the printer. But for this publication the important document would be lost to-day.

Various bulls of Alexander VI. testify to the lively interest which he took in this giant stride of progress in science and common welfare; but, zealous pontiff as we have already learned him to be, he soon provided the means to profit by the discoveries for the glory of the Christian religion and for the civilization and eternal welfare of numberless peoples fallen to the lowest degree of barbarism and idolatry. On the 25th of June, 1493, he issued the famous letters appointing Father Bernard Boil the first Vicar Apostolic of the newly discovered lands, with the faculty of naming other priests, either secular or regular, to go with him on Columbus's second voyage and assist him in the charitable and pious work of conversion and civilization.1

A few years later the Sovereign Pontiff received a letter from the great discoverer himself requesting more priests and missionaries for the ever-widening fields for apostolic zeal in our Western Continent." "I beg you, Holy Father," Columbus wrote, "that you may deign to give me, for my consolation and for other reasons. that bear on this enterprise so noble and holy, the assistance of a few priests and friars whom I know to be well fitted for the work."

We would like to give the whole of this letter, as interesting as little known, but we are trespassing already on the limits set to our present work; and, as it is our intention to publish, at some future time, quite an

1 Raynaldi was the first to publish that document. (Annales Ecclesiastici, tom. xi. p. 216.) The original record can be found in the

Vatican Secret Archives, Regestum 777, fo. 122.

2 Encyclical letter of Leo XIII. : "Quarto abeunte sæculo," July 16,

amount of both printed and manuscript material regarding the "Beginnings of Christianity in America after the Discovery of Columbus," we trust to find then a more suitable place for this and other important documents which further attest the laudable and Christian aspirations of both the great sailor and the great pontiff, and witness the wonderful and almost miraculous spread of our Holy Religion over the vast regions of our hemisphere within a short space of time.

APPENDIX OF DOCUMENTS.

DOCUMENT XVIII.

ST. CORMAC'S DISTANT NORTHERN VOYAGE.1

"Cum idem Cormacus tertia in oceano mari fatigaretur vice, prope usque ad mortem periclitari cæpit. Nam cum ejus navis a terris, per quatuordecim æstæi temporis dies totidemque noctes, plenis velis, Austro flante vento, ad septentrionalis plagam cæli, directo excurreret cursu; ejusmodi navigatio ultra humani excursus modum et irremeabilis videbatur. Unde contigit, ut post decimam ejusdem quarti et decimi horam diei, quidam pene insustentabiles undique et valde formidabiles consurgerent terrores. Quippe quædam, usque in id tempus invisa mare obtegentes occurrerunt terræ ; et infestæ nimis bestiolæ, quæ horribili impetu, carinam et latera puppimque et proram ita forti feriebant percussura, ut pelliceum tectum navis putarentur penetrare posse. Qui, ut hi qui inerant ibidem, postea narrarunt, prope magnitudinem ranarum, aculeis permolestæ, non tamen volatiles sed natatiles erant. Sed et remorum infestabant palmulas. Quibus visis, inter cetera monstra, quæ non hujus est temporis narrare, Cormacus cum nautis comitibus, Deum precantur."

2

DOCUMENT XIX.

ICELAND OR THULE KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS.3

We have noticed before that the islands of the Cronian Sea, the groups north of Britain, were not unknown to the ancient Greeks. Pytheas, the famous Marsilian explorer of the fourth

century before Christ, either was in Iceland or received correct information in regard to this isle during his visit on the English coast. He speaks of its short nights, and locates it at six days' sailing to the North of Britain. Eratosthenes and Hipparchus, of the second century before our era, admit the statements of Pytheas. Virgil sang of the "ultima Thule" forty years before Christ. The great geographer Strabo, who was a contemporary of Our Lord, in speaking of Pytheas's voyages, calculates that Thule must occupy the place which our modern geographers assign to Iceland, on the sixty-sixth degree of northern latitude. Pomponius Mela, half a century after Christ, mentions all the islands north of Scotland, and speaks of Iceland's long days and nights in unmistakable terms. Pliny, another wellknown author of the first century of our era, states that, at his time, were mentioned among other northern islands: Scandia, Dumna, Bergos, and, the largest of them all, Nerigos, Norreg or Norway; from which point they embark for Thule, which lies, he says, six days' sailing north of Britain. Statius, a poet of that same time, wrote: "Should I wander off to the lasting cold of the North and cross the setting sun into Thule's dark valleys.” The grave historian Tacitus, of the end of the first century, assures us that Agricola discovered and subjugated the Orkneys, and descried Thule covered with snow. Solinus, a writer of the third century, speaks of Thule like his predecessors, in regard to its alternate long days and nights; and Claudian, a poet, tells, in the year 390, that the emperor, Theodosius, had frightened the far distant island with the sound of his Getish war. There

1 Hornius, De Originibus Americanis, p. 156; Gravier, Découverte de l'Amérique par les Normands, p. xiv, seq.; xxi, ref. to Pliny, lib. ii. cap. lxxv. ¶ 77.

2

Gravier, Découverte de l'Amérique, p. xxxv, ref. to Pliny, lib. iv. cap. xv.; Moosmüller, Europäer in Amerika vor Columbus, S. 16.

3 Georgica, lib. i. v. 30.

Gravier, Découverte de l'Amérique, p. xxii, ref. to Géographie de Strabon, Paris Impr. Imp., t. ii. p. 84, n. 2; Moosmüller, Europäer in Amerika, S. 16.

5 Gravier, Découverte de l'Amérique, p. xx, n. 3; Moosmüller,

can be no doubt that Iceland and Thule are one and the same island, as was admitted already by Adam of Bremen and Casaubonus, and as is clearly proved by Letronne.1

DOCUMENT XX.

IRISH "PAPAS" IN ICELAND BEFORE THE SCANDINAVIANS." "En ádhr Ísland bygdhist af Noregi, voru thar their menn er Nordhmenn kalla Papa; their voru menn Kristnir, ok hyggja menn at their muni verit hafa Vestan um haf, thví at fundust eptir theim baekr írskar, bjoellur ok baglar, ok enn fleiri lutir, their er that mátti skilja at their voru Vestmenn, that fannst í Papey austr ok í Papýli, er ok thess getit á bókum enskum, at í thann tíma var farit milli landanna."

"Tha voru hér menn cristnir, their er Northmenn calla Papa, en their fóru síthan á braut, af thví at their vildu eigi vesa hèr vith heithna menn, ok lèto eptir baekr írscar ok bjoellor ok bagla; af thví mátti scilja at their voru menn írscir.”3

A literal translation of which is:

And ere Iceland was settled from Norway, were there the men whom the Northmen called Papa; they were men Christians, and men think that they landed from the West across the sea, for that were found after them books Irish, bells and staffs, and some other goods, so it is easily known that they were Westmen, that were found in Papa Island eastwards and in Papa Estate; and it is told in books English, that in that time there was faring between the lands.

There were here men Christians, them the Northmen call Papa, and they fared afterwards abroad, for that they would not be here with heathen men, and left behind books Irish and bells and staffs; from that we easily know that they were men Irish.

1 Recherches Géographiques et Critiques sur le livre, of Dicuil: De Mensura Orbis Terræ, p. 137.

• Islands Landnámabók, Prologus; from Storm, Monumenta Historica Norvegiæ, p. 8, and an art. of P. A. Munch, in the Mé

moires des Antiquaires du Nord, 1845-49, p. 218; Rafn. Antiq. Amer., pp. 204, 205. (Ref. to pp. 32, 35, 37, 38, 42, 43.)

Are Frode, Islendíngabók, cap. i.; Rafn, Antiq. Amer., p. 204.