COMING OF THE NORSEMEN From the original painting by H. B. Matthews "They came in the manner of sea-kings. Their venture was heroic, but only a few traces of their presence in America remain to testify of their duing deeds” O PREFACE. UR country, as known to civilized men, is young in years and, measured by the standards of other continents, is without antiquity of Art, Science, Literature, or Government. It is in a New World, as the chroniclers have called it; its existence suspected by the ancients, but proven only in the later periods of history. Yet its people possess the treasured experience of ages, and the results of the progress of the human race from prehistoric times. With these treasures they have bought wisdom wherewith to construct, with wonderful celerity, the fabric of a nation marvellous in its strength and resources, developed and undeveloped. It is only yesterday, as it were, in the calendar of the earth's existence, when the fact was first made known to modern men, that our planet was a globe, and that in the waters between the western coasts of Europe and Africa and the eastern coasts of Asia, there lay a vast continent teeming with life, wealth, and beauty. For generations after that discovery, the Continent was wrapped in profound mystery, the subject of wild conjecture and tales of wonder. Then newly-awakened moral forces impelled brave and earnest men and women to venture across the Atlantic Ocean and establish homes in the virgin wilderness. So began the heroic age of our Republic, at which period were planted the germs of the great commonwealths that compose the United States nation. The story of the growth of the Republic, since the planting of those germs, is deeply interesting in incident and rich in suggestions. It is full of picturesque passages which give life and color to the less attractive details, |