Note 396-1 — THE FOURTH VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS

The Spanish reads, “Lo que yo sé es que el año de noventa y cuatro en veinte y cuatros grados al Poniente en termino de nueve horas.” The translation in the text and that in Thacher (II. 687) of the Italian makes nonsense. The translation should be “what I know is that in the year ’94 (1494) I sailed westward on the 24th parallel (lit. on 24 degrees) a total of nine hours (lit. to a limit of nine hours).” That is, he reckoned that he had gone 9/24 round the world on the 24th parallel, and he knew it because there was an eclipse by which he found out the difference in time between Europe and where he was. The “termino” of nine hours refers to the western limit of his exploration of the southern coast of Cuba when he concluded it was a projection of the mainland of Asia. After reaching the conclusion that this is the correct interpretation of this passage, I discovered that it had been given by Humboldt in his Kritische Untersuchungen über die historische Entwickelung der geographischen Kenntnisse von der Neuen Welt, I. 553, and by Peschel in his Zeitalter der Entdeckungen, p. 97, note 2. It may be objected to this explanation that in reality Columbus had only gone about 75 degrees west of Cape St. Vincent in Portugal. The accurate calculation of longitude at that time, however, was impossible, and as will be seen in the following note Columbus’s calculation was biassed by powerful preconceptions.