?

[Niven Sinclair <niven@niven.co.uk>]

Bruce,

A message to you has been returned as 'undeliverable'.

I can't remember what the subject matter was about unless it was part
of a discussion on the pros and cons for Prince Henry's voyage to the
New World in 1398.

The case is now made beyond any shadow of doubt.

Torfaeus, the Royal Danish Historian, in his "Vinlandia Antiqua" states in 
his "Lives
of the Zeno Brothers" that the veracity of their biographical work is now 
"beyond criticism".

R.H.Major, the one time Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, wrote:

	"The first to do himself honour by vindicating the truth of the Zeno narrative
	  was the distinguished companion of Captain Cook, the circumnavigator,
	  Johann Reinhold Forster".

Forster wrote: "So that after these elucidations there can be no reason 
left to doubt
                        the truth of the narrative of the Zenos which 
considered with resepct
		  to the geography of the North at that period is of great importance"

Fiske, the renowned American historian, in his Chapter of 108 pages on 
pre-Columbian
voyages which forms so striking a part of his book "The Discovery of 
America", which
was published by MacMillan in two volumes, states:

	"The Zeno narrative of which there is an English translation in the 
Hakluyt Society's
	  Collection of Voyages has had full discussion and complete acceptance.

	"In this field of decision there is little room for a new hand, the 
important conclusions
            having been unmistakenly reached".

Richard Hakluyt wrote in part:

	"Those names were placed upon the charts and are the same which Henry St 
Clair 	  used and are affixed to his maps, now in possession of the Hakluyt 
Society in
	  London, a reproduction of which may be found in Ridpath's "History of 
America"

Captain Arlington Mallery in his "Rediscovery of Lost America" wrote:

	"In confirming my analysis of the Greenland portion of the Zeno map,
	Victor* accomplished something of magnitude for cartographers, historians
	  and scholars in general: he restored to the Zeno map its original reputation
	  for authenticity"

* Note:  Paul Emile Victor of the French Polar Expedition which explored 
Greenland
             between 1948-1951 attested that Greenland was really three 
islands bridged
             by an ocean.  This, according to Mallery explained the islands 
which appeared
             on the Zeno map.

Charles H. Hapgood, Professor of Science at Keene State College of the 
University of
New Hampshire spent many years studying the Zeno map as well as the work of 
Mallery
and Victor.  He concluded: "This, together with Nicolo Zeno's own coastal 
survey of
Greenland resulted in an amazingly accurate map".  The Zeno map was undoubtedly
the most advanced of its day and continued to be used by such cartographers
(Mercator, Ortelius, etc.) and by explorers (Frobisher, Davis, etc).  It 
could not have
been prepared withour first hand knowledge of the North Atlantic, Iceland 
and Greenland.
Hapgood concludes: "The Zeno input was real, substantial and very 
professional".

Professor Taylor of London University wrote in her "Fourteenth Century Riddle"

		"The authenticity of the (Zeno) account has been challenged but on
		  very flimsy grounds.  It appears to the present writer to be quite out
		  of the question that any author could invent a story which, in every 
detail,
		  reflects facts about which it would have been impossible that he could 
be 		  aware if he had not been there",

Professor William Herbert Hobbs (Michigan University), who is the author of 
"The Fourteenth
Century Discovery of America by Antonio Zeno" wrote:

		"In the (Zeno) narrative Nicolo described finding in East Greenland many
		  things which later explorers had not discovered there: a populous 
settlement
		  of Eskimos, a monastery of Catholic friars, hot springs with which the 
friars
		  heated their houses and church, summer shipping connected with
		  Scandinavia and Spitsbergen.

		"This has been considered to be quite fantastic and even false so the Zeni
		  have quite generally been classed with the great faker Cook.  Yet, during
		  the last half century, the evidence of all these have been found to be 
there".

		"Had the Zeni made a map acceptable to modern geographers, they would,
		  thereby, have shown themselves to be early 'Doctor Cooks'. That they
		  produced a true magnetic map proves them to have been very reliable
		  and honest explorers far in advance of their age.  Their map was accepted
		  by the great geographers and copied on to their own maps, by Ruscelli
		  in 1561, by Mercator in 1569 and by Ortelius in 1574"

Professor Lethbridge (Cambridge University, England) the author of "The 
Painted Man"
and Keeper of the Anglo-Saxon Antiquities in the University Museum of 
Archaeology
and Ethnology, wrote in regard to the Westford Knight:
		"This sword carved on a rock face can hardly be anything but a medieval
		  sword.  The whole hilt looks about A.D. 1200-1300.  The significance of
		  this is considerable.  I do not see how this particular form of sword could
		  be anything but European and pre-Columbian.  It might even be earlier
		  than I have suggested although that is very unlikely.

		"I think the sword carving is one of the most important things ever to have
		  been discovered in America".

If we take the above conclusion with the findings of Sir Iain Moncrieffe of 
that Ilk, the
Albany Herald for Scotland and author of "The Highland Clans", who wrote 
in  regard
to the shield of the Westford Knight:

		"The shield was of the heater-shaped type still in use in Scotland
		  and Norway in the fourteenth century.  The heraldic devices on
		  the shield appeared to be a galley with crossed oars.

		"The unexpected information tended towards the solution of two
		  completely separate problems that I had been considering. The
		  first was 'what was a mediaeval coat-of-arms of the Chiefs of
		  the Clan Gunn doing on a rockface in Massachusetts'?  The
		  original emblem of Orkney and Caithness alike was a galley.

		"The coat-of-arms in Massachusetts is the obvious one to be the
		  Gunn original but it would take fewer heralds than there are fingers
		  on one hand to know this and also sufficient knowledge about
		  armour to be able to fake an aged rock-carving in Massachusetts.

		"The second problem I have been considering for many years was this:
		  'Did the Sinclair Expedition reach America?'  Henry Sinclair was 'jarl'
		  of Orkney (then part of the Norwegian realm) and Baron of Rosslyn
		  in Scotland.  He was also the nearest neighbour to the Gunnss.  In
		  1398 he made a great naval expedition across the Atlantic Ocean
		  and wintered there after a successful land fall in order to continue
		  his explorations.

		"There is nothing remarkable in the idea that the 'jarl' of Orkney,
		  a Scotsman but the premier 'jarl' of Norway, sailing to America
		  in the fourteenth century because the Norsemen had been crossing
		  the Atlantic since at least four centuries before and the great
		  Scandinavian houses were all inter-related.

		"Henry Sinclair was also related to the Gunns, the next most important
		  family on the Pentland Firth to the Sinclairs themselves.  So the
		  discovery at Westford of what is apparently an efffigy of a fourteenth
		  century Knight in bascinet, camail and surcoat, with a heater-shaped
		  shield bearing devices of a Norse-Scottish character, such as might have
		  been expected of a Knighg in 'jarl' Henry Sinclair's entourage, and a
		  pommelled sword of the period, is hardly likely to be a coincidence.

		"I rather think the mighty 'jarl' stayed a while - possibly wintered - in
		  Massachusetts".

Following on a meeting with the Historical Commissioners of the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts, the Westford Knight has now been classified as an historical 
artefact
which will be protected 'in perpetuity'.

There is much else which I could add to prove that Henry Sinclair made a 
voyage to the
New World in 1398 but, I trust, the foregoing will be adequate to convince 
even the most
hardened sceptic.

In my "Beyond Any Shadow of Doubt" I quote the work of  25 different 
experts from many
different disciplines and from 10 different countries who all support the 
authenticity of the
Zeno narrative and map and, ipso facto,  Henry Sinclair's voyage.

I will be happy to meet any challenger on any platform at any time to argue 
the case.

Niven Sinclair



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