Note 95-1 — JOURNAL OF THE FIRST VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS
Reading edition
Las Casas in his Historia, I. 267, says “on that day at nightfall the needles northwested that is to say the fleur de lis which marks the north was not pointing directly at it but verged somewhat to the left of north and in the morning northeasted that is to say the fleur de lis pointed to right of the north until sunset.”
The Historie agrees with the text of the Journal that the needle declined more to the west, instead of shifting to an eastern declination.
The author of the Historie remarks: “This variation no one had ever observed up to this time,” p. 62. “Columbus had crossed the point of no variation, which was then near the meridian of Flores, in the Azores, and found the variation no longer easterly, but more than a point westerly. His explanation that the pole-star, by means of which the change was detected, was not itself stationary, is very plausible. For the pole-star really does describe a circle round the pole of the earth, equal in diameter to about six times that of the sun; but this is not equal to the change observed in the direction of the needle.” (Markham.)