Excerpt from History of the City of New York, Vol. 1The earliest record of the existence of the American Continent is found among the literary legacies of the Icelanders of the tenth century, who were superior to the continental people of that age both in mental vigor and physical endurance. But their discoveries were the result of hap hazard adventure rather than scientific probabilities, and their efforts at colonization were signal failures. From their geographical works we find that they supposed these western lands to be a part of Europe, and, while the accounts of their expeditions were carefully preserved, not a line was committed to parchment until many centuries had passed, so that there is very little reason for presuming that succeeding generations were materially benefited by reason of them.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.