Note 134-3 — JOURNAL OF THE FIRST VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS

Rather, “The text here is corrupt.” Las Casas, I. 324, gives the same figures and adds, “yet I think the text is erroneous.” Navarrete says the quadrants of that period measured the altitude double and so we should take half of forty-two as the real altitude. If so, one wonders why there was no explanation to this effect in the original journal which Las Casas saw or why Las Casas was not familiar with this fact and did not make this explanation. Ruge, Columbus, pp. 144, 145, says there were no such quadrants, and regards these estimates as proofs of Columbus’s ignorance as a scientific navigator.