The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-11-19

] certainty; the materials at our conn
nland only enable us to reckon up
probabilities with more or less con-
| fdenee. We know nothing of his edu-
cation, and are justiiably suspicious Of
| the statement in an old prejudiced life,
attributed to his son, that he studied
at Pavia- 1t is not known when he
went to Portugal, nor when he pro-
ceeded to Spain. We do not even know
where he first set foot IN the new
world. 1t is impossible to identify
with certainty the island which he
named San Salvador. There are strong
reasons for supposing that the life en-
/ titled Historic, which appeared in the
name of his son Ferdinand, does not,
| in the form in which we have 1.-THE
printed edition of 157l-owe its origin
! to Ferdinand It follows that the state
ments of this book cannot be accepted
without careful consideration. Our
knowledge Of the adrniraPs life has
hitherto been confidently built upon
this book; take it away, and
the whole structure becomes un-
steady. In fact, there is not
single great man whose genius has
left its mark upon the world ABBOTT
whose personality there is so much
dou bt as is the case with Columbus
Let us try. with the help of the latest
and most trustworthy researches, to
trace the story of the life and develop
ment of the great man of Genoa A
Genoese we may certainly call him,
though one BIASED historian would
have us believe that he was born in
Corsica. He comes, then, from a city
which has had a great influence on the
history of commerce. We may assert
with absolute certainty that we owe to
Italian seamen the first accurate knowl-
edge of the Atlantic, the first maps Of
the eastern parts of the ocean. The
use of the compass and its adaptation
to nautical purposes began in Italy.
With this trustworthy guide over the
boundless prospect the Italian seaman
committed his ship with confidence to
the ocean waves; and it was the prac-
teal Italian sailor who, with the help
of the magnetic needle, made those
wonderful charts which from the
thirteenth century onward represent to
us with marvellous fidelity, almost
with the accuracy of the mirror,
the coast of the whole Mediter-
ranean, from the foot of Mount
Lebabon and the slopes of the Caucasus
TO the Pillars of Hercules Fortunately
q number of these documents have been
preserved in archives and libraries; and
though the earliest parchment of the
kind which comes down to US bears
the date 1911, we may infer from the
high degree of accuracy that had even
then been reached. that years had
PASSED since the task of making these
surveys had commenced. There is no
more striking evidence of the extensive
knowledge then possessed of the west
ern ocean than is presented by these
remarkable relics, and it is of the great
est Importance that we should know
rahat progress had been made in the
middle of the fifteenth century in the
acquisition of clear and definite knowl-
edge of the stretches of ocean in the
neighborhood of Europe and north
Africa, Tor it was at this time that GER
tain ideas were gradually taking a
more definite shape, a group of ideas
which eliminated. towards the end of
the century, in the plan of voyage
westward across the ocean; and Column
bus was the first to put the plan into
execution.-D s. Ruge, in Harper's
MaUa zine