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Columbus now found himself two hundred miles and more farther than the three thousand miles west of Spain, where he supposed Cipango to lie, and he was 25-1/2° north of the equator, according to his astrolabe. The true distance of Cipango or Japan was sixty-eight hundred miles still farther, or beyond both North America and the Pacific.
This occurred in latitude 25-1/2° N., where, according to our inexperienced conception of these singular winds, we ought to have found a regular breeze from the very opposite quarter!
The cave is bell-shaped, and from the floor to the top of the dome measures 25-1/2 feet. The bottom is not quite circular, but nearly so, and in diameter is from 17 feet to 17 feet 6 inches. A broad step surrounds it, 8 inches wide and 3 feet from the floor. About 8 feet above the floor a cornice runs round the walls cut in a reticulated or diamond pattern two feet wide.
The one in the old parlor has a width of 38-1/2 inches, a height of 28-1/2 inches, and a depth of 13-1/2 inches. The smallest has an opening just off the square which is 27 inches wide by 25-1/2 inches high with a depth of only 11 inches. All three are non-smokers under all conditions of wind and weather.
Their upshot was to confirm and widen the law of retardation with increasing latitude derived from the progressive motions of spots. Determinations made within 15° of the pole, consequently far beyond the region of spots, gave a rotation-period of 38-1/2, that of the equatorial belt being of 25-1/2 days.
It was regarded as a very difficult undertaking, as the bed of the river was composed mostly of quicksand, and a rise of 25-1/2 feet in the river had to be provided for, and floating ice, its full width, fifteen inches in thickness. Maj. George W. Whistler, the first of his profession, was chief engineer of the work, and he had as advisers Maj. McNeal, Capt. Swift, and other eminent engineers.
Next night he stood to the N.W. and by N. and on the 8th of the same month came to anchor at the shoals of Babecua, near the Isola del Viejo, in lat. 22°-1/2 N. Next day he anchored at one of the Bahama or Lucayos islands called Caycos, and then at another called Yaguna, in lat. 24° N. On the 11th he came to the island of Amaguayo, and then passed Manegua, in lat 24°-1/2 N. He came to Guanahani, in lat. 25-1/2 N. on the 14th, where he refitted the ships before crossing the bay to windward of the Lucayos.
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