Note 55 — ON THE CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO, Near Atures and Maypures.

p. 155—“Ancient rocky barrier.”

Columbus, whose unwearied spirit of observation was directed 175on every side, proposes in his letters to the Spanish monarchs, a geognostic hypothesis regarding the configuration of the larger Antilles. Being fully impressed with the idea of the strength of the Equinoctial current, which has often a westerly direction, he ascribes to it the disintegration of the group of the smaller Antilles, and the singularly lengthened configuration of the southern coasts of Porto Rico, Haiti, Cuba, and Jamaica, all of which follow almost exactly the direction of parallels of latitude. On his third voyage (from the end of May, 1498, to the end of November, 1500), when, from the Boca del Drago to the Island of Margarita, and afterwards from that island to Haiti, he felt the whole force of the equinoctial current, “that movement of the waters which accords with the movement of the heavens—movimiento de los cielos,” he says expressly that the violence of the current has torn the Island of Trinidad from the mainland. He refers the sovereigns to a chart which he sends them—a “pintura de la tierra,” drawn by himself, to which frequent reference is made in the celebrated lawsuit against Don Diego Colon respecting the rights of the first Admiral. “Es la carta de marear y figura que hizo el Almirante señalando los rumbos y vientos por los quales vino á Paria, que dicen parte del Asia.”^[ID]