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Transcriber's Note: A number of typographical errors in the original text have been maintained in the current version of this book. A complete list is found at the end of the text.
ORIGINAL NARRATIVES OF EARLY AMERICAN HISTORY
REPRODUCED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
GENERAL EDITOR, J. FRANKLIN JAMESON, PH.D., LL.D. DIRECTOR OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH IN THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON
THE NORTHMEN, COLUMBUS, AND CABOT 985-1503
_ORIGINAL NARRATIVES OF EARLY AMERICAN HISTORY_
THE VOYAGES OF THE NORTHMEN EDITED BY JULIUS E. OLSON PROFESSOR OF THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES IN THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN
THE VOYAGES OF COLUMBUS AND OF JOHN CABOT EDITED BY EDWARD GAYLORD BOURNE, PH.D. PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN YALE UNIVERSITY
COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
_All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the permission of Charles Scribner's Sons_
GENERAL PREFACE TO THE ORIGINAL NARRATIVES OF EARLY AMERICAN HISTORY
At its annual meeting in December, 1902, the American Historical Association approved and adopted the plan of the present series, and the undersigned was chosen as its general editor. The purpose of the series was to provide individual readers of history, and the libraries of schools and colleges, with a comprehensive and well-rounded collection of those classical narratives on which the early history of the United States is founded, or of those narratives which, if not precisely classical, hold the most important place as sources of American history anterior to 1700. The reasons for undertaking such a project are for the most part obvious. No modern history, however excellent, can give the reader all that he can get from the _ipsissima verba_ of the first narrators, Argonauts or eyewitnesses, vivacious explorers or captains courageous. There are many cases in which secondary narrators have quite hidden from view these first authorities, whom it is therefore a duty to restore to their rightful position. In a still greater number of instances, the primitive narrations have become so scarce and expensive that no ordinary library can hope to possess anything like a complete set of the classics of early American history.