Christopher Columbus: Captain's LogIn 1492, after using Ptolemy's 1,350-year-old estimates of the Earth's circumference (which, unlike those of Eratosthenes, were, he knew, completely erroneous) to win Queen Isabella's financial support, Christopher Columbus set off on his first expedition to the New World. His crew was understandably unnerved by the prospect of a trip through unknown waters, to an unknown destination, with an unknown date of return. (Indeed, Columbus did not have sufficient provisions to reach his intended destination.)
In a bid to reassure his men, and reduce the likelihood of a mutiny, Columbus disguised the true length of the journey by keeping two logs; the second contained artificially reduced distances suggesting that they were much closer to home than Columbus imagined.
Columbus, the Admiral of the Ocean Sea, was later amused to learn that his falsified figures were more accurate than those in the "true" log.
["I have come to another conclusion respecting the earth," Columbus wrote to Queen Isabella during his third voyage, "namely, that it is not round as they describe, but of the form of a pear... or like a round ball, upon one part of which is a prominence like a woman's nipple, this protrusion being the highest and nearest the sky." (Like many Europeans, Columbus believed that the Biblical Garden of Eden might lie in the West Indies and his Caribbean voyages were motivated in part by a search for paradise.)]
[Trivia: A huge marker once stood at the strait of Gibraltar bearing a three word Latin inscription: NE PLUS ULTRA ("No More Beyond"). After Columbus's discovery of the new world, Spanish coins bore the inscription: PLUS ULTRA ("More Beyond").]
Columbus, Christopher (1451-1506) Italian explorer [noted for his discovery of America (while attempting to reach Asia by sailing west from Europe in 1492) and for his subsequent voyages to the Caribbean in his quest for a sea route to China]
[Sources: L. Young, Blue Planet and Uncle John's Absolutely Absorbing Bathroom Reader, p. 94; Select Letters of Christopher Columbus, translated by R. H. Major]More Christopher Columbus anecdotesRelated Anecdote Keywords:
Explorers Exploration Earth Deception Irony Navigation Consolation 15th Century Ruses
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