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The air was mild and temperate, it being the neight of summer. They took a great quantity of fish, of seafowl and their eggs. party, who penetrated the country as far as the foot of the volcano, found a spring, from which issued "a certain water like pitch, which ran into the sea." They discovered some of the inhabitants, who were of small stature and wild, and who, at the approach of the strangers, hid themselves in their caves. Having found a good harbour, Zichmni intended to make a settlement; but his people opposing it, he dismissed part of the fleet under Zeno, who returned to Frisland.

The particulars of this narrative were first written by Antonio Zeno, in letters to his brother Carlo at Venice, from some fragments of which a compilation was made by Francisco Marcolini, and preserved by Ramusio. It was translated by Richard Hakluyt, and printed in the third volume of the second edition of his collections, page 121, &c. From it Ortelius has made an extract in his Theatrum Orbis.

Dr. Forster has taken much pains to exam ine the whole account, both geographically and historically. The result of his inquiry is, that Frisland is one of the Orkneys; that

Porland is the cluster of islands called Faro; and that Estland is Shetland.

At first, indeed, he was of opinion that σε the countries described by the Zenos actually existed at that time, but had since been swallowed up by the sea in a great earthquake."* This opinion he founded on the probability that all the high islands in the middle of the sea are of volcanic original, as is evident with respect to Iceland and the Faro Islands in the North Sea; the Azores, Teneriffe, Madeira, the Cape de Verds, St. Helena, and Ascension in the Atlantic; the Society Islands, Otaheite, Easter, the Marquesas, and other islands in the Pacific. This opinion he was induced to relinquish, partly because "so great a revolution must have left behind it some historical vestiges or traditions," but principally because his knowledge of the Runic language suggested to him a resemblance between the names mentioned by Zeno and those which are given to some of the islands of Orkney, Shetland, Faro, and the Hebrides.

However presumptuous it may appear to call in question the opinion of so learned and diligent an inquirer, on a subject which his *Northern Voyages, Dublin edition, p. 200.

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philological and geographical knowledge must enable him to examine with the greatest precision, yet, from the search which I have had opportunity to make, it appears to me that his first opinion was right as far as it respects Frisland, and perhaps Porland. My reasons are these:

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1. Dr. Forster says that Frisland was "much larger than Iceland ;"* and Hakluyt, in his account of Zeno's voyage, speaks of it as "bigger than Ireland."+ Neither of these accounts can agree with the supposition of its being one of the Orkneys; for Iceland is 346 miles long and 200 wide. Ireland is 310 in length and 184 in breadth; but Pomona, the mainland of the Orkneys, is but 22 miles long and 20 wide.

2. Frisland was seen by Martin Frobisher in each of his three voyages to and from Greenland in the years 1576, 1577, and 1578. In his first voyage he took his departure from Foula, the westernmost of the Shetland Islands, in latitude 60° 30', and, after sailing W. by N. fourteen days, he made the land of Frisland, "bearing W.N.W. distant 16 leagues, in latitude 61°." * Page 181. Vol. iii., p. 122.

Hakluyt, vol. iii, p. 30, &c.

In his second voyage he sailed from the Orkneys W.N.W. twenty-six days before he came "within making of Frisland," which he thus describes:

"July 4th. We made land perfect, and knew it to be Frisland. Found ourselves in latitude 60, and were fallen in with the southernmost part of this land. It is thought to be in bigness not inferior to England; and is called of some authors West Frisland. I think it lieth more west than any part of Europe. It extendeth to the north very far, as seemed to us, and appeareth by a description set out by two brethren, Nicolo and Antonio Zeni, who, being driven off from Ireland about 200 years since, were shipwrecked there. They have in their sea charts described every part, and, for so much of the land as we have sailed along, comparing their charts with the coast, we find it very agreeable. All along this coast the ice lieth as a continual bulwark, and so defendeth the country, that those who would land there incur great danger."* In his third voyage he found means to land on the island. The inhabitants fled and hid themselves. Their tents were made of skins, and their boats were like

* Hakluyt, vol. iii., p. 62.

those of Greenland. From these well-authenticated accounts of Frisland, and its situation so far westward of the Orkneys and Shetland, it seems impossible that Dr. Forster's second opinion can be right.

3. One of the reasons which led the doctor to give up his first opinion, that these lands once existed, but had disappeared, was, that so great a revolution must have left some vestige behind. If no person escaped to tell the news, what better vestige can there be than the existence of shoals and rocks in the places where these islands once were known to be? In a map prefixed to Crantz's History of Greenland, there is marked a very extensive shoal between the latitudes of 59° and 60°, called "The sunken land of Buss." Its longitude is between Iceland and Greenland, and the author speaks of it in these words: "Some are of opinion that Frisland was sunk by an earthquake, and that it was situate in those parts where the sunken land of Buss is marked in the maps, which the seamen cautiously avoid, because of the shallow ground and turbulent waves."*

Respecting Buss Island I have met with no other account than what is preserved by Pur* Vol. i., p. 273.