The Scandinavian people, destined to play so important a part in the history of the world, were, as we have said, a branch of the great Indo-European variety.  We have seen that modern ethnology teaches that all the races which inhabit Europe, with some trifling exceptions, belong to one family, which originated in Central Asia.  This has appeared and is proved by means of glossology, or the science of language.  The closest resemblance exists between the seven linguistic families of Hindostan, Persia, Greece, Rome, Germany, the Kelts, and the Slavi; and it is a most striking fact of human history, that from the earliest period of recorded time down to the present day a powerful people, speaking a language belonging to one or other of these races, should have in a great measure swayed the destinies of the world.

Before the birth of Christ the peninsula of Denmark was called by the Romans the Cimbric Chersonesus, or Cimbric peninsula.  This name came from the Cimbri, a people who, one hundred and eleven years before Christ, almost overthrew the Roman Republic, exciting more terror than any event since the days of Hannibal.  More than three hundred thousand men, issuing from the peninsula of Denmark and the adjacent regions, poured like a torrent over Gaul and Southern Germany.  They met and overthrew in succession four Roman armies; until, finally, they were conquered by the military skill and genius of Marius.  After this eruption was checked, the great northern volcano slumbered for centuries.  Other tribes from Asia—­Goths, Vandals, Huns—­combined in the overthrow of the Roman Empire.  At last the inhabitants of Scandinavia appear again under the name of Northmen, invading and conquering England in the fifth century as Saxons, in the ninth century as Danes, and in the eleventh as Normans again overrunning England and France.  But the peculiarity of the Scandinavian invasions was their maritime character.  Daring and skilful navigators, they encountered the tempests of the Northern Ocean and the heavy roll of the Atlantic in vessels so small and slight that they floated like eggshells on the surface of the waves, and ran up the rivers of France and England, hundreds of miles, without check from shallows or rocks.  In these fragile barks they made also the most extraordinary maritime discoveries.  The sea-kings of Norway discovered Iceland, and settled it A.D. 860 and A.D. 874.  They discovered and settled Greenland A.D. 982 and A.D. 986.  On the western coast of Greenland they planted colonies, where churches were built, and diocesan bishoprics established, which lasted between four and five hundred years.  Finally, in A.D. 1000, they discovered, by sailing from Greenland, the coast of Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Massachusetts Bay; and, five hundred years before the discovery of Columbus, gathered grapes and built houses on the southern side of Cape Cod.  These facts, long considered mythical, have been established, to the satisfaction of European