The total approximate "Amerindian" or aboriginal population of the New World at the present day is 16,000,000, of whom about 111,000 live in the Canadian Dominion, and 300,000 in the United States, the remainder in Central and South America.] [Footnote 2: It is doubtful whether actual masts and sails were known in America till the coming of Europeans, though the ancient Peruvians are said to have used mat sails in their canoes.

But the northern Amerindians had got as far as placing bushes or branches of fir trees upright in their canoes to catch the force of the wind.] Iceland, though it lies so far to the north that it is partly within the Arctic Circle, is, like Norway, Scotland, and Ireland, affected by the Gulf Stream, so that considerable portions of it are quite habitable.

It is not almost entirely covered with ice, as Greenland is; in fact, Iceland should be called Greenland (from the large extent of its grassy pastures), and Greenland should be called Iceland.
Instead of this, however, the early Norwegian explorers called these countries by the names they still bear.
The Norse rovers from Norway and the Hebrides colonized Iceland from the year 850; and about a hundred and thirty-six years afterwards, in their venturesome journeys in search of new lands, they reached the south-east and south-west coasts of Greenland.

Owing to the glacial conditions and elevated character of this vast continental island (more than 500,000 sq.

miles in area)--for the whole interior of Greenland rises abruptly from the sea-coast to altitudes of from 5000 to 11,000 ft .-- this discovery was of small use to the early Norwegians or their Iceland colony.