COLUMBUS' DISCOVERY OF VARIATION. 199 



have sufficed. Columbus also believed that the lodestone 

 was influenced by the different parts of the heavens, so that 

 if the needle were touched with one part of the stone it 

 would point east, with another west, and so on; and in fact 

 he says that those who rub the needles cover the stone 

 with a cloth so that the north part only is exposed, and 

 the needle being touched with this possesses the virtue of 

 turning to the north. 1 



Whatever interpretation Columbus may have given to 

 the phenomenon in order to quiet the fears of his men, or 

 whatever his own ideas may have been as to the cause of 

 it, there is certainly no disputing the fact that he did then 

 fully observe and recognize the variation of the compass. 

 Moreover, he saw the needle vary at other times on other 

 voyages, and the net result of his observation is given in 

 his letter to the King and Queen on his third voyage, in 

 his own words, as follows: 



"When I sailed from Spain to the West Indies I found 

 that as soon as I had passed 100 leagues west of the 

 Azores, there was a very great change in the sky and the 

 stars, in the temperature of the air and in the water of the 

 sea: and I remarked that from North to South in travers- 

 ing these hundred leagues from the said islands, the needle 

 of the compass, which hitherto had turned toward the 

 northeast, tivrned a full quarter of the wind to the north- 

 west, and this took place from the time when we reached 

 that line." 2 



He even drew a deduction from his observations which 

 is curious, and characteristic of both the man and the 

 time : 



U I have come," he says, u to the conclusion that the 

 earth is not round, but of the form of a pear, or of a ball 

 with a protrusion being highest and nearest the sky 

 situated under the equinoctial line. ... In confirmation 



del Almirante, C. 66. Munoz.: Hist. N. Mundo, lib., vi., g 32. 

 Also authorities before cited. 



Major: Select Letters, cit. sup. 



