e of the same race as the
settlers on Mickle Ireland, and related to the "white-bearded men" who
established an extinct civilization in Mexico. A French antiquary, 1875,
identified Mickle Ireland with Ontario and Quebec. Beauvois, in his
Elysee trans-atlantique, derives the name Labrador from the _Innis
Labrada_, an island mentioned in an ancient Irish romance.[3] Another
Irish discoverer was St. Brandan,[4] Abbot of Cluainfert, Ireland (died
May 16, 577), who was told that far in the ocean lay an island which was
the land promised to the saints. St. Brandan set sail in company with
seventy-five monks, and spent seven years upon the ocean in two voyages,
discovering this island and many others equally marvelous, including one
which turned out to be the back of a huge fish, upon which they
celebrated Easter.[5]

[Footnote 3: As to the Irish claim for the pre-Columbian discovery of
America, see also Humboldt (Cosmos, ii, 607), and Laing (Heimsk., i,
186).]

[Footnote 4: MS. Book of Lismore.]

[Footnote 5: The story is given by Humboldt and D'Avezac.]

Among the Celtic claimants for discovery we must also include the Welsh,
who lay stress upon certain resemblances between their language and the
dialects of the native Americans. A better argument is the historical
account taken from their annals about the expedition of Prince Madoc,
son of a Welsh chieftain, who sailed due west in the year 1170, after
the rumor of the Norse discoveries had reached Britain. He landed on a
vast and fertile continent where he settled 120 colonists. On his return
to Wales he fitted out a second fleet of ten ships, but the annals give
no report of the result. Several writers state that the place of landing
was near the Gulf of Mexico: Hakluyt connecting the discovery with
Mexico (1589) and again with the West Indies (edition of 1600). In the
seventeenth century some authors wished to substantiate the story of
Prince Madoc, in order that the British claim to America should antedate
the Spanish claim through Columbus. Prince Madoc is, to most readers,
only known by Southey's poem.[6]

[Footnote 6: Some quotations from Southey's poem are given in Chapters
V, VI.]

3. _Basque Discovery of America._--Who are the Basque people? A curious
race of Spanish mountaineers, who have been as great a puzzle to
ethnologists and historians as their language has been to philologists
and scholars. We know, however, that in former times they were nearly
all