Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 November 1887 — THE NORSE COLUMBUS. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE NORSE COLUMBUS.

The Sturdy Navigator Who Found His Way to the New World 500 Years Before Him of Genoa. There was unveiled with appropriate ceremonies, at Juneau Park, Milwaukee, a few days ago, a splendid statue of Lief Ericson, the bold Icelandic navigator who, it is pretty well established, discovered the American Continent nearly 500 years before Columbus sighted its shores. The statue is by Miss Whitney, of Boston, and is a replica of one which was unveiled in Commonwealth avenue, Boston, at the same time. It is said to be an excellent work of aft, and will establish an enviable reputation for Miss Whitney in a field in which

members of her sex have rarely excelled. It is of bronze and will weigh about 1,200 pounds. The granite base upon which it is to stand is eight feet square at the base and weighs fourteen tons. Leif was a son of Eric the Red, one of the Norse sea kings who flourished in the end of the tenth and the beginning of the eleventh century. Fired by the report brought by one of Eric’s followers that in seeking for Greenland a great land farther to the west had been seen, Leif set sail for the new continent in the year 1000, and landed somewhere in the neighborhood of the island subsequently known as Nantucket. A brother and a sister of the venturous Norseman followed him in independent voyages several years later, and with their retainers explored the coast of the mainland for several hundred miles, becoming familiar with parts of Rhode Island, Connecticut, Long Island, and New York. These voyages are now as well authenticated as those of Columbus, which they preceded by nearly five hundred years. The fact that they resulted in no permanent settlement at the time is the reason why they have failed to occupy a place in history as prominent as that secured by the later discoverers of America. Now, however, that the children of the old Norsemen are flocking to this conn try to establish themselves, and that the study of Norse literature is coming to be considered of account in the universities, the fame of Leif is likely to grow wider from year to year.

Silver was first coined by Phidan, King of Argos, about 860 B. C., the epoch of the building of Carthage, and 140 years after the building of Solomon’s Temple.