where was this additional island, if such there were? 

 It did not fit into the pattern of the chosen courses of 

 either Morison or Verhoog, which encompassed only the 

 accepted formula of four islands. From Watling island 

 it was impossible to fit this unnamed island into the track 

 which Morison had chosen. 



As Ed compared the Journal entries for this period 

 with the chart showing Verhoog's postulated Caicos land- 

 fall, he had an inspiration. After leaving Caicos, could 

 not Columbus have sailed right on past Mayaguana to- 

 ward Samana and anchored there for the night? Samana 

 then would have been his Santa Maria de la Concepcion. 

 From here, then, he could have continued on to Long 

 island, which would have been the third-named island, 

 Fernandina. 



Morison had already selected Long island as Fernan- 

 dina, but we had been unable to reconcile the route he 

 had chosen from Watling with Columbus's descriptions 

 of the shores and distances along the way. Now, by ap- 

 proaching Long island from Caicos and Samana, the ques- 

 tionable pieces of the puzzle seemed to fall into place. 

 From here on we were inclined to agree with Morison that 

 Columbus had sailed to Crooked island, his fourth-named 

 island of Isabella, and from there had continued by way 

 of the Ragged islands to Cuba. 



Here are the three suggested courses of Columbus 

 through the Bahamas which we investigated: 



