Why the Norsemen disappeared from the Western Hemisphere we do
not exactly know, but there are interesting hints of an
explanation. It appears that the fourteenth century was a time of
great distress. In Norway the crops failed year after year
because of cold and storms. Provinces which were formerly able to
support themselves by agriculture were obliged to import food.
The people at home were no longer able to keep in touch with the
struggling colony in Greenland. No supplies came from the home
land, no reenforcements to strengthen the colonists and make them
feel that they were a part of the great world. Moreover in the
late Norse sagas much is said about the ice along the Greenland
coast, which seems to have been more abundant than formerly. Even
the Eskimos seem to have been causing trouble, though formerly
they had been a friendly, peaceable people who lived far to the
north and did not disturb the settlers. In the fourteenth
century, however, they began to make raids such as are common
when primitive people fall into distress. Perhaps the storms and
the advancing ice drove away the seals and other animals, so that
the Eskimos were left hungry. They consequently migrated south
and, in the fifteenth century, finally wiped out the last of the
old Norse settlers. If the Norse had established permanent
settlements on the mainland of North America, they might have
persisted to this day. As it was, the cold, bleak climate of the
northern route across the Atlantic checked their progress. Like
the Indians, they had the misfortune of finding a route to
America through regions that are not good for man.

Though islands may be stepping-stones between the Old World and
the New, they have not been the bringers of civilization. That
function in the history of man has been left to the winds. The