DISCOVERY OF AMERICA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18861, 8 November 1924, Page 14 (Supplement)

DISCOVERY OF AMERICA.

DANISH-PORTUGUESE CLAIM.

EARLY joint expedition.

LONG BEFORE COLXTMBUS.

Among the numeroyw papers read at the recent Americanists Cobgpss at Gothenburg perhaps the most was that by Dr Sophus du«f librarian of Copenha ? er. University concerning a reported joint Damsh-XV>rtu-euese expedition to American scores through the Arctic Ocean a quarter of a century before the voyage of CoiLvybus. _ _ According to Dr. Xiarsen, of Pomerania, whose wife was a sister of Prince Henry the Navigator, made it knova that certain Portuguese navigators were anxious to discover a new way to the East by a northerly passage, and that the coasts of Greenland were constantly visited by Karili tribesmen coming from beyond the North Pole. The Portuguese proposed sending a joint expedition to the Polar seas to expldre this passage. An expedition of Danish and Portuguese ships, under the joint com-^ mand of Admirals Pining and Pothurst. was made ten years lator in the reign of Christian I. of Denmark. Contemporary accounts of its results were now lost, but a letter dated May 3, 1551—three-quarters of a century lator —written by the Burgomaster of Kiel to Christian HI., says that a map published in Paris shows that the expedition under Pining and Pothurst reached Greenland, and tnere fought with Esquimaux from the opposite shores. On a globe of 1537 the sea between Greenland and the American coast is called "Three Brothers," and round and through it the Portuguese endeavoured to sail to India. North of" this Is shown a channel called Quisfolk, ' stated to have been navigated by Johannes Scolus, from Denmark, in 1476. A family tradition in the Azores has it that Joao Vaz Corte Real was made Governor of the Azores iii recompense for his discoveries in Polar seas, while a Portuguese map of 1534 calls Labrador Joao vaz Land and a bav on the American coast Joao Vaz Bay. All these statements, concluded Dr. Larsen, must be based on some detailed account of these expeditions which po longer exists. Olaus Magnus* description of Iceland and taken from documents he found in Venice, was probably connected with the Portuguese account of this joint expedition in the reign of King Christian I.