A recent communication from United States Consul Simpson, at Puerto Plata, announces that he has lately visited Isabella, in the interest of the monument. He made a careful survey of the site of the ancient town, and cleared the grounds of the trees and masses of trailing vines that encumbered the ruins, and after a thorough examination, assisted by the people of the neighborhood, he found the remains of the first church. Other communications have been received from the Dominican government approving of the change of plan, substituting the statue for the simple stone monument, and offering the memorial committee the hospitalities of the island. And so the work goes on. The monument, when erected, will commemorate two things--the establishment of Christianity and the rise of civilization in the New World. On the spot where it will stand Columbus built the first church 400 years ago. One bronze relief shows the great discoverer in the fore-ground on bended knees with a trowel in his hand, laying the corner-stone. On the right, sits an ideal female figure, representing Mother Church, fostering a little Indian child, and pointing with uplifted hand to the cross, the emblem of man's salvation. Crouching Indians are at her feet, listening with astonishment to the strange story, while on the left of the cross are monks with bowed heads and lighted tapers, and in the distance are Spanish cavaliers and hidalgos. The conception is thoroughly Catholic, Christian, simple, and artistic; it tells its own story with a pathos and directness not often found in works of this kind. The second tablet is more ideal and more severely classical than the first. The genius of civilization, bearing gifts, is carried in a chariot drawn by prancing horses. The Admiral, at the horses' heads, with one hand points the way for her to follow, while with the other he hands the reins to Columbia, the impersonation of the New World. An Indian at the chariot wheels stoops to gather the gifts of civilization as they fall from the cornucopia borne by the goddess. And thus is told in enduring bronze, by the genius of the artist, the symbolic story of the introduction of civilization to the New World. Upon the face of the pedestal, a third tablet bears the inscription which was written at the instance of Very Rev. Dr. Charles B. Rex, president of the Brighton Theological Seminary. Mgr. Schroeder, the author, interprets the meaning of the whole, in terse rhythmical Latin sentences, after the Roman lapidary style: _Anno. claudente. saeculum XV._ _Ex. quo. coloni. Christiani. Columbo. Duce_ _Hic. post. oppidum. constitutum_ _Primum. in. mundo. novo. templum_ _Christo. Deo. dicarunt_ _Ephemeris. Bostoniensis_ _Cui. a. sacro. corde. est. nomen_ _Sub. auspice. civium. Bostoniae_ _Ne. rei. tantae. memoria. unquam. delabatur_ _Haec. marmori. commendavit._ _A. D. MDCCCLXXXXII._ (_Translation of the Inscription._)