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THE TREASURE REVEALED 



THE familiar rhyme tells us, ''In fourteen hundred and 

 ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue." But why 

 then and not earlier or later? Certain men who make a mark 

 in history find the time ripe for their adventure. But they also 

 help to detonate the time by a specific act of daring and imag- 

 ination beyond that of their fellows and are thus remembered. 

 The time was ripe at the end of the fifteenth century because 

 the preceding two centuries had witnessed an increasing misery 

 spread across Europe from Italy to England, this in spite of 

 local centers of prosperity in Genoa and Venice. Wars, 

 plagues, and poverty were the lot of the average citizen. The 

 population of Europe is supposed to have declined a third 

 since the days of Augustus. Besides disease, the general condi- 

 tions of trade contributed to the poor state of Europe. In 

 England and on the continent the simple fact that there was 

 little or no winter forage or hay for cattle affected the diet, 

 and forced men to search for preservatives like salt and spices, 

 and to substitute fish for meat. Spices lay to the Far East, 

 fish in the unknown seas. But there was a ''Moslem curtain" 

 between Europe and its former eastern trade routes. The 

 Turks took Constantinople in 1453. They had overrun the 

 Balkans, were pressing up the Danube, and threatened and 

 finally took Syria and Egypt, bringing to a standstill the com- 

 merce of Venice and Genoa with the East. 



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