It is strange that any one should think of this theory of the slime who had not seen or heard of the Sargasso Sea--that great bank of floating seaweed that the ocean currents collect and retain in the middle of the basin of the North Atlantic.
The Egyptians, the Tartars, the Canaanites, the Chinese, the Arabians, the Welsh, and the Scandinavians have all been credited with the colonisation of America; but the only race from the Old World which had almost certainly been there were the Scandinavians.

In the year 983 the coast of Greenland was visited by Eric the Red, the son of a Norwegian noble, who was banished for the crime of murder.

Some fifteen years later Eric's son Lief made an expedition with thirty-five men and a ship in the direction of the new land.

They came to a coast where there were nothing but ice mountains having the appearance of slate; this country they named Helluland--that is, Land of Slate.

This country is our Newfoundland.