e to secure for each text the most
competent editor.

The results of all these endeavors will be laid before the public in the
confident hope that they will be widely useful in making more real and
more vivid the apprehension of early American history. The general editor
would not have undertaken the serious labors of preparation and
supervision if he had not felt sure that it was a genuine benefit to
American historical knowledge and American patriotism to make accessible,
in one collection, so large a body of pioneer narrative. No subsequent
sources can have quite the intellectual interest, none quite the
sentimental value, which attaches to these early narrations, springing
direct from the brains and hearts of the nation's founders.

_Sacra recognosces annalibus eruta priscis._

J. FRANKLIN JAMESON.

CARNEGIE INSTITUTION, WASHINGTON, D.C.

NOTE

Special acknowledgments and thanks are due to the representatives of the
late Arthur Middleton Reeves, who have kindly permitted the use of his
translations of the Vinland sagas, originally printed in his _Finding of
Wineland the Good_, published in London by the Clarendon Press in 1890;
to the President and Council of the Hakluyt Society, for permission to
use Sir Clements Markham's translation of the Journal of Columbus's first
voyage, printed in Vol. LXXXVI. of the publications of that Society
(London, 1893), and that of Dr. Chanca's letter and of the letter of
Columbus respecting his fourth voyage, by the late Mr. R.H. Major, in
their second and forty-third volumes, _Select Letters of Columbus_
(London, 1847, 1870); to the Honorable John Boyd Thacher, of Albany, for
permission to use his version of Las Casas's narrative of the third
voyage, as printed by him in his _Christopher Columbus_ (New York, 1904),
published by Messrs. G.P. Putnam's Sons; to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin and
Company for permission to use, out of the third volume of Winsor's
_Narrative and Critical History of America_, the late Dr. Charles Deane's
translation, revised by Professor Bennet H. Nash, of the second letter of
Raimondo de Soncino respecting John Cabot's expedition; and to George
Philip and Son, Limited, of London, for permission to use the map in
Markham's _Life of Christopher Columbus_ as the basis for the map in the
present volume, showing the routes of Columbus's four voyages.

CONTENTS

ORIGINAL NARRATIVES OF THE VOYAGES OF THE NORTHMEN
EDITED BY PROFESSOR JULIUS