198 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



13, 1492, the needle varied to the northwest half a point, 

 and at dawn nearly half a point further. From this he 

 states that he knew that it was not adjusted to the Pole star, 

 but to some other fixed and invisible point, the variation 

 of which no one had, up to that time, observed, and hence, 

 on the third day, having sailed about one hundred leagues 

 further, he wondered because he observed the needle come 

 back to the star. On September lyth the pilots, having 

 measured the sun's amplitude, 1 found the needles were a 

 whole point in error; and then the seamen were greatly 

 terrified, for they believed that their trusted guide had 

 failed them. This is the time when Columbus is said to 

 have invented the fiction of the movement of the Pole 

 star in order to quiet their apprehensions, the personal 

 narrative in Martin's collection stating u the Admiral dis- 

 covered the cause, and ordered them to take the amplitude 

 the next morning, when they found that the needles were 

 true. The cause was that the star moved from its place, 

 while the needle remained stationary." 2 



As Peregrinus had pointed out this movement of the 

 Pole star more than two hundred years before, and Prince 

 Henry's College had probably sifted all theories of the 

 compass, including the notion that the needle pointed to 

 the pole of the heavens and not to the Pole star, it is 

 probable that Columbus simply stated a fact as he under- 

 stood it, and in that respect invented nothing. Of course, 

 to the ignorant seamen, any reasonable explanation would 



1 The sun's true amplitude is the number of degrees that the sun rises 

 or sets to the northward or southward of the east or west points of the 

 horizon. As the sun has no variation, by means of such an observation 

 the variation between the true north and the magnetic north as indicated 

 by the compass can be determined. 



a Hist. del S. D. Fernando Colombo * * * dei fatti del 1'Ammiraglio D. 

 C. Colombo, suo padre, etc. Venice, 1621, cap. xvii. 



Martin: Coleccion de los Viajes y Descubrimientos que hiceron por 

 mar los Espanoles desde fines del Siglo XV. Madrid, 1825. 



Kettel, S.: Personal Narrative of the First Voyage of Columbus to 

 America. Boston, 1827. 



