Christopher Columbus and How He Received and Imparted the Spirit of Discovery Part 21

[Sidenote: Columbus's misconception of the line of no variation.]

[Sidenote: Sebastian Cabot's observations of its help in determining longitude.]

As he still moved westerly the magnetic line was found to move farther and farther away from the pole as it had before the 13th approached it.

To an observer of Columbus's quick perceptions, there was a ready guess to possess his mind. This inference was that this line of no variation was a meridian line, and that divergences from it east and west might have a regularity which would be found to furnish a method of ascertaining longitude far easier and surer than tables or water clocks.

We know that four years later he tried to sail his s.h.i.+p on observations of this kind. The same idea seems to have occurred to Sebastian Cabot, when a little afterwards he approached and pa.s.sed in a higher lat.i.tude, what he supposed to be the meridian of no variation. Humboldt is inclined to believe that the possibility of such a method of ascertaining longitude was that uncommunicable secret, which Sebastian Cabot many years later hinted at on his death-bed.

The claim was made near a century later by Livio Sanuto in his _Geographia_, published at Venice, in 1588, that Sebastian Cabot had been the first to observe this variation, and had explained it to Edward VI., and that he had on a chart placed the line of no variation at a point one hundred and ten miles west of the island of Flores in the Azores.

[Sidenote: Various views.]

These observations of Columbus and Cabot were not wholly accepted during the sixteenth century. Robert Hues, in 1592, a hundred years later, tells us that Medina, the Spanish grand pilot, was not disinclined to believe that mariners saw more in it than really existed and that they found it a convenient way to excuse their own blunders. Nonius was credited with saying that it simply meant that worn-out magnets were used, which had lost their power to point correctly to the pole. Others had contended that it was through insufficient application of the loadstone to the iron that it was so devious in its work.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PART OF MERCATOR'S POLAR REGIONS, 1569.

[From R. Mercator's Atlas of 1595.]]

[Sidenote: Better understood.]

What was thought possible by the early navigators possessed the minds of all seamen in varying experiments for two centuries and a half. Though not reaching such satisfactory results as were hoped for, the expectation did not prove so chimerical as was sometimes imagined when it was discovered that the lines of variation were neither parallel, nor straight, nor constant. The line of no variation which Columbus found near the Azores has moved westward with erratic inclinations, until to-day it is not far from a straight line from Carolina to Guiana.

Science, beginning with its crude efforts at the hands of Alonzo de Santa Cruz, in 1530, has so mapped the surface of the globe with observations of its multifarious freaks of variation, and the changes are so slow, that a magnetic chart is not a bad guide to-day for ascertaining the longitude in any lat.i.tude for a few years neighboring to the date of its records. So science has come round in some measure to the dreams of Columbus and Cabot.

[Sidenote: Columbus remarks on changes of temperature and aberrations of stars.]

But this was not the only development which came from this ominous day in the mid Atlantic in that September of 1492. The fancy of Columbus was easily excited, and notions of a change of climate, and even aberrations of the stars were easily imagined by him amid the strange phenomena of that untracked waste.

While Columbus was suspecting that the north star was somewhat willfully s.h.i.+fting from the magnetic pole, now to a distance of 5 and then of 10, the calculations of modern astronomers have gauged the polar distance existing in 1492 at 3 28', as against the 1 20' of to-day.

The confusion of Columbus was very like his confounding an old world with a new, inasmuch as he supposed it was the pole star and not the needle which was s.h.i.+fting.

[Sidenote: Imagines a protuberance on the earth.]

He argued from what he saw, or thought he saw, that the line of no variation marked the beginning of a protuberance of the earth, up which he ascended as he sailed westerly, and that this was the reason of the cooler weather which he experienced. He never got over some notions of this kind, and believed he found confirmation of them in his later voyages.

[Sidenote: The magnetic pole.]

Even as early as the reign of Edward III. of England, Nicholas of Lynn, a voyager to the northern seas, is thought to have definitely fixed the magnetic pole in the Arctic regions, transmitting his views to Cnoyen, the master of the later Mercator, in respect to the four circ.u.mpolar islands, which in the sixteenth century made so constant a surrounding of the northern pole.

[Sidenote: 1492. September 14.]

[Sidenote: September 15.]

[Sidenote: September 16.]

[Sidenote: Sarga.s.so Sea.]

The next day (September 14), after these magnetic observations, a water wagtail was seen from the "Nina,"--a bird which Columbus thought unaccustomed to fly over twenty-five leagues from land, and the s.h.i.+ps were now, according to their reckoning, not far from two hundred leagues from the Canaries. On Sat.u.r.day, they saw a distant bolt of fire fall into the sea. On Sunday, they had a drizzling rain, followed by pleasant weather, which reminded Columbus of the nightingales, gladdening the climate of Andalusia in April. They found around the s.h.i.+ps much green floatage of weeds, which led them to think some islands must be near.

Navarrete thinks there was some truth in this, inasmuch as the charts of the early part of this century represent breakers as having been seen in 1802, near the spot where Columbus can be computed to have been at this time. Columbus was in fact within that extensive _prairie_ of floating seaweed which is known as the Sarga.s.so Sea, whose princ.i.p.al longitudinal axis is found in modern times to lie along the parallel of 41 30', and the best calculations which can be made from the rather uncertain data of Columbus's journal seem to point to about the same position.

There is nothing in all these accounts, as we have them abridged by Las Casas, to indicate any great surprise, and certainly nothing of the overwhelming fear which, the _Historie_ tells us, the sailors experienced when they found their s.h.i.+ps among these floating ma.s.ses of weeds, raising apprehension of a perpetual entanglement in their swas.h.i.+ng folds.

[Sidenote: 1492. September 17.]

[Sidenote: September 18.]

The next day (September 17) the currents became favorable, and the weeds still floated about them. The variation of the needle now became so great that the seamen were dismayed, as the journal says, and the observation being repeated Columbus practiced another deceit and made it appear that there had been really no variation, but only a s.h.i.+fting of the polar star! The weeds were now judged to be river weeds, and a live crab was found among them,--a sure sign of near land, as Columbus believed, or affected to believe. They killed a tunny and saw others.

They again observed a water wagtail, "which does not sleep at sea." Each s.h.i.+p pushed on for the advance, for it was thought the goal was near.

The next day the "Pinta" shot ahead and saw great flocks of birds towards the west. Columbus conceived that the sea was growing fresher.

Heavy clouds hung on the northern horizon, a sure sign of land, it was supposed.

[Sidenote: 1492. September 19.]

On the next day two pelicans came on board, and Columbus records that these birds are not accustomed to go twenty leagues from land. So he sounded with a line of two hundred fathoms to be sure he was not approaching land; but no bottom was found. A drizzling rain also betokened land, which they could not stop to find, but would search for on their return, as the journal says. The pilots now compared their reckonings. Columbus said they were 400 leagues, while the "Pinta's"

record showed 420, and the "Nina's" 440.

[Sidenote: 1492. September 20.]

[Sidenote: September 22. Changes his course.]

[Sidenote: Head wind.]

[Sidenote: September 25.]

On September 20, other pelicans came on board; and the s.h.i.+ps were again among the weeds. Columbus was determined to ascertain if these indicated shoal water and sounded, but could not reach bottom. The men caught a bird with feet like a gull; but they were convinced it was a river bird.

Then singing land-birds, as was fancied, hovered about as it darkened, but they disappeared before morning. Then a pelican was observed flying to the southwest, and as "these birds sleep on sh.o.r.e, and go to sea in the morning," the men encouraged themselves with the belief that they could not be far from land. The next day a whale could but be another indication of land; and the weeds covered the sea all about. On Sat.u.r.day, they steered west by northwest, and got clear of the weeds.

This change of course so far to the north, which had begun on the previous day, was occasioned by a head wind, and Columbus says that he welcomed it, because it had the effect of convincing the sailors that westerly winds to return by were not impossible. On Sunday (September 23), they found the wind still varying; but they made more westering than before,--weeds, crabs, and birds still about them. Now there was smooth water, which again depressed the seamen; then the sea arose, mysteriously, for there was no wind to cause it. They still kept their course westerly and continued it till the night of September 25.

[Sidenote: Appearances of land.]

[Sidenote: Again changes his course.]

[Sidenote: September 26.]

[Sidenote: 1492. September 27.]

[Sidenote: September 30.]

[Sidenote: October 1.]

[Sidenote: October 3.]

[Sidenote: October 6.]

[Sidenote: October 7.]

[Sidenote: s.h.i.+fts his course to follow some birds.]

Columbus at this time conferred with Pinzon, as to a chart which they carried, which showed some islands, near where they now supposed the s.h.i.+ps to be. That they had not seen land, they believed was either due to currents which had carried them too far north, or else their reckoning was not correct. At sunset Pinzon hailed the Admiral, and said he saw land, claiming the reward. The two crews were confident that such was the case, and under the lead of their commanders they all kneeled and repeated the _Gloria in Excelsis_. The land appeared to lie southwest, and everybody saw the apparition. Columbus changed the fleet's course to reach it; and as the vessels went on, in the smooth sea, the men had the heart, under their expectation, to bathe in its amber glories. On Wednesday, they were undeceived, and found that the clouds had played them a trick. On the 27th their course lay more directly west. So they went on, and still remarked upon all the birds they saw and weed-drift which they pierced. Some of the fowl they thought to be such as were common at the Cape de Verde Islands, and were not supposed to go far to sea. On the 30th September, they still observed the needles of their compa.s.ses to vary, but the journal records that it was the pole star which moved, and not the needle. On October 1, Columbus says they were 707 leagues from Ferro; but he had made his crew believe they were only 584. As they went on, little new for the next few days is recorded in the journal; but on October 3, they thought they saw among the weeds something like fruits. By the 6th, Pinzon began to urge a southwesterly course, in order to find the islands, which the signs seemed to indicate in that direction. Still the Admiral would not swerve from his purpose, and kept his course westerly. On Sunday, the "Nina"