Note 5 — LETTER XXI.

Mr. Washington Irving, in his Life of Columbus, vol. i. p. 83, has the following:—“Between them is placed the island of Cipango, or Japan, which, according to Marco Polo, lay fifteen hundred miles distant from the Asiatic coast. In his computation, Columbus advanced this island about a thousand leagues too much to the east, supposing it to be about in the situation of Florida, and at this island he hoped first to arrive.” The centre of Florida and the centre of the island of Japan lie about 130° asunder. A degree of longitude in those latitudes will average somewhere about fifty miles, (this is approximative, not calculated,) which will give two thousand leagues as the distance between them.