The Columbus monument, in the Paseo de la Reforma, in the City of Mexico, was erected at the charges of Don Antonio Escandon, to whose public spirit and enterprise the building of the Vera Cruz & Mexico Railway was due. The monument is the work of the French sculptor Cordier. The base is a large platform of basalt, surrounded by a balustrade of iron, above which are five lanterns. From this base rises a square mass of red marble, ornamented with four _basso-relievos_; the arms of Columbus, surrounded with garlands of laurels; the rebuilding of the monastery of Santa Maria de la Rabida; the discovery of the Island of San Salvador; a fragment of a letter from Columbus to Raphael Sanchez, beneath which is the dedication of the monument by Senor Escandon. Above the _basso-relievos_, surrounding the pedestals, are four life-size figures in bronze; in front and to the right of the statue of Columbus (that stands upon a still higher plane), Padre Juan Perez de la Marchena, prior of the Monastery of Santa Maria de la Rabida, at Huelva, Spain; in front and to the left, Padre Fray Diego de Deza, friar of the Order of Saint Dominic, professor of theology at the Convent of St. Stephen, and afterward archbishop of Seville. He was also confessor of King Ferdinand, to the support of which two men Columbus owed the royal favor; in the rear, to the right, Fray Pedro de Gante; in the rear, to the left, Fray Bartolome de las Casas--the two missionaries who most earnestly gave their protection to the Indians, and the latter the historian of Columbus. Crowning the whole, upon a pedestal of red marble, is the figure of Columbus, in the act of drawing aside the veil that hides the New World. In conception and in treatment this work is admirable; charming in sentiment, and technically good. The monument stands in a little garden inclosed by iron chains hung upon posts of stone, around which extends a large _glorieta_. THE TRIBUTE OF JOAQUIN MILLER. JOAQUIN (CINCINNATUS HEINE) MILLER, "the Poet of the Sierras." Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, November 10, 1842. From a poem in the New York _Independent_. Behind him lay the gray Azores, Behind the gates of Hercules; Before him not the ghost of shores, Before him only shoreless seas. The good mate said, "Now must we pray, For lo! the very stars are gone. Brave Adm'ral, speak; what shall I say?" "Why say, 'Sail on! sail on! and on!'" "My men grow mutinous day by day; My men grow ghastly, wan and weak." The stout mate thought of home; a spray Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek. "What shall I say, brave Adm'ral, say, If we sight naught but seas at dawn?" "Why, you shall say, at break of day, 'Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!'"