Note Back to Main Text — Chapter V · THE SEARCH FOR THE INDIES. WESTWARD OR SPANISH ROUTE.

First it is assumed that Columbus must have read the appendix to Adam of Bremen's history. But really, while it is not impossible that he should have read that It is not probable that Columbus knew of Adam of Bremen's allusion to Vinland, document, it is, on the whole, improbable. The appendix was first printed in Lindenbrog's edition, published at Leyden, in 1595. The eminent Norwegian historian, Gustav Storm, finds that in the sixteenth century just six MSS. of Adam's works can now be traced. Of these, two were preserved in Denmark, two in Hamburg, one had perhaps already wandered southward to Leyden, and one as far as or that he would have understood it if he had read it. Vienna. Dr. Storm, therefore, feels sure that Columbus never saw Adam's mention of Vinland, and pithily adds that "had Columbus known it, it would not have been able to show him the way to the West Indies, but perhaps to the North Pole."[473] From the account of this mention and its context, which I have already given,[474] it is in the highest degree improbable that if Columbus had read the passage he could have understood it as bearing upon his own problem. There is, therefore, no ground for the assumption that Columbus went to Iceland in order to make inquiries about Vinland.