Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia / being a concordance of choice tributes to the great Genoese, his grand discovery, and his greatness of mind and purpose

by Unknown

VISIT OF COLUMBUS TO ICELAND.

Finn Magnusen, an Icelandic historian and antiquary. Born at Skalholt, 1781; died, 1847.

The English trade with Iceland certainly merits the consideration of historians, if it furnished Columbus with the opportunity of visiting that island, there to be informed of the historical evidence respecting the existence of important lands and a large continent in the west. If Columbus should have acquired a knowledge of the accounts transmitted to us of the discoveries of the Northmen in conversations held in Latin with the Bishop of Skalholt and the learned men of Iceland, we may the more readily conceive his firm belief in the possibility of rediscovering a western continent, and his unwearied zeal in putting his plans in execution. The discovery of America, so momentous in its results, may therefore be regarded as the mediate consequence of its previous discovery by the Scandinavians, which may be thus placed among the most important events of former ages.

STATUE OF COLUMBUS, BY SENOR G. SUÑOL, ON THE MONUMENT IN THE PASEO DE RECOLETOS (DEVOTEES' PROMENADE), MADRID, SPAIN.
Erected, 1885. (See page [209].)