As to its geographical representations, this terrestrial globe appears to be older than that of Martin Behaim, yet at the southern extremity of Africa we find the name “Mons Niger,” inscribed with the legend “Huc usque Portugalenses navigio pervenere 1493.” The great enterprise of Christopher Columbus (Fig. 24), wherein he may be said to have achieved a final victory for the doctrine of a spherical earth, entitled his name to a place of prominence in the history of terrestrial globes. That Columbus himself constructed globes, as has been sometimes inferred from a statement of Las Casas, may, however, be questioned, since this statement touches the reputed correspondence between Columbus and Toscanelli, which correspondence, in the light of the very searching studies of Mr. Henry Vignaud, must now be considered to be of doubtful authenticity.[111] It appears, however, from this letter that the famous Italian cosmographer, Pauolo Toscanelli, himself was accustomed to explain problems arising in the field of discovery by the use of the globe, and Las Casas tells us that Columbus resolved to write to him, making known his intentions, which he desired to be able to fulfil, and sent to him a globe through Lorenzo Girardi, a Florentine, at that time residing in Lisbon.[112] Ferdinand Columbus, referring to this incident, says that “the globe was a small one.”[113] In referring to Bartholomew, the son of Christopher Columbus, Las Casas observes that “he was a man of prudence and of great intelligence in all matters pertaining to the seas. I believe not much less learned in cosmography and in what relates thereto, the making of navigator’s charts and globes and other instruments of that kind.”[114] Again, we find in a letter which Christopher Columbus directed to their Catholic Majesties, that he “sent to their Majesties a certain round representation.”[115] None of these references to globes, as before stated, necessarily give us to understand that Christopher Columbus was a globe maker. Certain it is that none is now known attributed to him or to his son. [Illustration: Fig. 24. Lorenzo Lotto Portrait of Columbus.] The explorer, John Cabot (1450-1498) (Fig. 25), is likewise reputed to have been interested in the construction of globes. In a dispatch sent from London, December 18, 1497, by the envoy Raimondi di Soncino to the Duke of Milan, we read that “this Master John has a description of the world on a map, and also on a solid sphere, which he has made, and it shows where he landed, and that sailing toward the east (west) he had passed far beyond the region of the Tanais.”[116] [Illustration: Fig. 25. Portrait of Sebastian Cabot, Son of John Cabot.]