The object proposed by Dr Elton, is a summary of the knowledge we possess on the discovery of the Continent of America, by several adventurous European voyagers, anterior to the time of Columbus.

This subject, which has been for almost a century and a half well known to the students of northern history, was first made known to the rest of Europe by the publication of the Vinlandia Antiqua of the celebrated Torfœus in 1705; and most of the facts given by Dr Elton are extracted from that work. Torfœus proved from existing Icelandic MSS., that America was discovered, and even attempted to be colonized, by his enterprising countrymen, in the end of the tenth and beginning of the eleventh century; and the descriptions transmitted to us prove that they landed on what are now Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.