Cronau’s investigations are twofold in their nature: the first point of his inquiry being devoted to the reasons for thinking Watling’s the island on which Columbus landed; the second, to establishing the point at which the landfall took place. Though it is on this last point that special significance is to be attached to his investigations, it may not be out of place to give a brief summary of the argument as a whole. Columbus describes the island as low, covered with abundant and luxuriant vegetation, and as having a large body of water in the interior. In one place he speaks of the island as “small,” at another as “pretty large.” After the first landing, he goes N. N. E. in the small boats, and soon passes through a narrow entrance into a harbour “large enough to accommodate the fleets of Christendom.” In this harbour he discovers an admirable site of a fort, which he describes with minute care. He says, moreover, that the part of the island visited is protected by an outlying reef of rocks not far from the shore. Las Casas, who became very familiar with the islands during the life of Columbus, and who probably knew where the first landing was made, states that the form of the island was oblong, or “bean-shaped.” The length of Watling’s Island is about twelve English miles, the breadth between four and six. All these characteristics apply to Watling’s, and in their entirety they apply to no other. There are, however, certain difficulties in the way of accepting this theory. The most serious is the fact that the rocks off the northern, eastern, and southern parts of the island are so formidable as to offer no safe place for anchorage, and that an approach from none of these directions could afford the view described by Columbus. It is in meeting this difficulty that the ingenious theory of Cronau is of importance. It is in substance as follows.