LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

American.  Volume I.

Washington crossing the Delaware. Frontispiece.
Viking ships at sea. 11
Lake Champlain and its surroundings. 41
Pond island, mouth of the Kennebec. 54
The cave of the regicides. 76
The charter oak, Hartford. 85
Printing-press at which Franklin worked when A boy. 90
Washington’s home at Mt.  Vernon. 98
Shore of lake George. 118
Indian attack and gallant defence. 128
The old north church, Boston. 158
The spirit of ’76. 166
Ethan Allen’s entrance, Ticonderoga. 172
The old state house, Philadelphia. 191
The Benedict Arnold mansion. 220
The Monitor and the Merrimac. 280
Libby prison, Richmond. 298
Sinking of the Albemarle. 319
Muir Glacier in Alaska. 328
A native grass hut, Hawaii. 340

VINELAND AND THE VIKINGS.

The year 1000 A.D. was one of strange history.  Its advent threw the people of Europe into a state of mortal terror.  Ten centuries had passed since the birth of Christ.  The world was about to come to an end.  Such was the general belief.  How it was to reach its end,—­whether by fire, water, or some other agent of ruin,—­the prophets of disaster did not say, nor did people trouble themselves to learn.  Destruction was coming upon them, that was enough to know; how to provide against it was the one thing to be considered.

Some hastened to the churches; others to the taverns.  Here prayers went up; there wine went down.  The petitions of the pious were matched by the ribaldry of the profligate.  Some made their wills; others wasted their wealth in revelry, eager to get all the pleasure out of life that remained for them.  Many freely gave away their property, hoping, by ridding themselves of the goods of this earth, to establish a claim to the goods of Heaven, with little regard to the fate of those whom they loaded with their discarded wealth.