Science: A Farmer's Fun

Enthusiastic believers in Viking lore have no trouble accepting the Kensington stone. Allegedly found near Kensington, Minn, by Farmer Olof Ohman in 1898, the stone, inscribed in runic characters, tells of a band of Norsemen who wandered to Minnesota in 1362 and presumably died there of Indian-trouble.* Last week Professor (of Germanic languages) Erik Wahlgren of U.C.L.A. pooh-poohed the petrophiles. He had positive proof, he said, that the stone was faked by the late Farmer Ohman.

Chief champion of the Kensington stone is Hjalmar Holand, 81, of Ephraim, Wis., who has made...

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