August 26, 1920] 



NATURE 



803 



fine collection of Australian woods at the Im- 

 perial Institute, and can vouch for their accuracy 

 as» regards both colour and delineation. Every 

 timber has a distinct colour, though at times this 

 is far from easy to describe in the absence of any 

 standard colour nomenclature ; in such cases 

 coloured plates are a great help. Some of the 

 colour terms seem to be used in a rather loose 

 sense. The author employs eight types — (i) dark 

 red, (2) red, (3) pink, (4) grey, {5) chocolate, 

 (6) yellow, (7) pale, (8) white— but on comparing 

 some of the plates we find it hard to draw the 

 line between the types pink and pale, while some 

 of the timbers described under the heading of 

 white would be more correctly termed buff- 

 coloured. The illustrations in black-and-white 

 showing wood anatomy should also be a material 

 aid to identification. 



In part ii. we have a description of each species 

 in botanical sequence, followed by a list of timbers 

 arranged in grades of hardness. Part iii. contains 

 technical articles on (i) the determination of specific 

 timbers ; (ii) nomenclature ; (iii) the seasoning of 

 timber ; (iv) the preservation of timbers, conclud- 

 ing with an account of the economic uses of the 

 woods. The book contains a vast amount of 

 information useful to both foresters and students. 



The typographical arrangement is somewhat 

 open to criticism. The use of unnecessarily large 

 types for specific names and authorities, with a 

 wide margin, entails a great waste of space, and 

 makes the book rather cumbersome. On the other 

 hand, the systematic portion of the work might 

 with advantage have been in larger type. These 

 minor defects, however, do not detract from the 

 general excellence of the book. 



Mr. Baker is to be congratulated upon a valu- 

 'able addition to the literature of Australian 

 forestry, which should bring home to Australians 

 the importance of preserving these many valuable 

 woods from the extinction which threatens them 

 by a well-devised and vigorous scheme of re- 

 afforestation. A. B. J. 



The Columbian Tradition. 



The Columbian Tradition on the Discovery of 

 America and of the Part Played therein by the 

 Astronomer Toscanelli : A Memoir addressed to 

 the Profs. Hermann Wagner, of the University 

 of Gottingen, and Carlo Errera, of Bologr.a. 

 By Henry Vignaud. Pp. 62. (Oxford : At the 

 Clarendon Press, 1920.) Price T,s. 6J. net. 



IN various publications, especially in his "His- 

 toire de la Grande Entreprise de Christophe 

 Colomb " (Paris, 1911, 2 vols.), Mr. \'ignaud has 

 endeavoured to upset the traditional view of the 

 NO. 2652, VOL. 105] 



discovery of America. According to that view, 

 Columbus set out in 1492, not to discover un- 

 known lands, but to reach the eastern parts of 

 Asia by sailing westward across the Atlantic, 

 having already in 1474 been encouraged to do so 

 by the well-known astronomer Toscanelli of Flor- 

 ence. In this pamphlet Mr. Vignaud has again 

 summed up the results of his studies and defended 

 them against the attacks of his two principal 

 opponents. 



All we know about Columbus and the object of 

 his first voyage comes from himself or his son or 

 his blind admirer, Las Casas, and not one of these 

 is a trustworthy witness, as the exposure of 

 various falsehoods told about the family and early 

 history of Columbus has proved. No trace exists 

 of Columbus ever having spoken of going to 

 Eastern Asia before he returned from his great 

 discovery ; but that idea is spoken of in a letter 

 to the "Catholic Kings," which Las Casas placed 

 as a preface to the log-book of the first voyage. 

 This letter is, however, neither found nor alluded 

 to elsewhere, and bears no date. In the log-book 

 Columbus says that his sole object is las Indias, 

 but that book was edited by Las Casas, and in 

 the days when he wrote, this expression only 

 meant the Antilles and neighbouring lands, and 

 never the East Indies. Columbus, when leaving 

 Palos, did not sail straight across the Atlantic, as 

 would have been natural if his goal had been 

 "Cipangu" (Japan), or "Cathay" (China); he 

 first went down to the Canaries and then sailed 

 straight westward along the 28th parallel. At 

 700 or 750 leagues west of the Canaries he fully 

 expected to find land, and was greatly disturbed 

 when none was seen, so that he must have had 

 some private reason to believe that there were 

 islands near that spot ; and the discovery of these 

 would seem to have been the sole object of the 

 voyage. It has been objected to this that 

 Columbus (according to Las Casas) carried with 

 him credential letters for the "Great Khan." But 

 it is known that his partner, Pinzon, had some 

 idea of going in search of Cipangu. Mr. Vignaud 

 suggests that it was to secure the indispensable 

 co-operation of Pinzon that Columbus included 

 the visit to Cipangu in his plan, but that when 

 he only found land much further west than he 

 had expected, he believed that what he had found 

 was Cipangu, a belief which he kept to his dying 

 day. 



With regard to the alleged letter and map of 

 1474, attributed to Toscanelli, these were never 

 alluded to by Columbus himself; and the copy of 

 the letter found at Seville in 1871 was probably 

 not written by him, but by his brother. The in- 

 formation in the letter (the map is lost) is such 



