dreamer or worse. Between his danger of arrest and death as a heretic on the one hand, and imprisonment as a lunatic on the other, the man of science in those days had a hard time. Columbus therefore sought far and wide for evidence to support his theories and render them acceptable. How much he learned—what, in the way of facts, he actually knew—it is hard to say. Having fallen in love with a Portuguese lady of good family, he married and apparently settled in Portugal as his home, but continued his voyaging. He knew the Mediterranean from end to end. He made several voyages to the Guinea coast, and dwelt for a time at El Mina, then newly founded, satisfying himself of the foolishness of the common assertion that men could not live “under the equinoctial”—that is, near the equator. He went north to and beyond Iceland, and acquainted himself with those waters, and thus convinced himself that the ocean was everywhere navigable, and subject to uniform laws of tides, weather, etc. His mind was cleared more and more of the mists of fable and superstition, and all he learned brought into clearer view the truth of science as a guide. He devoted more and more attention to improving the means of finding the true position of a vessel at sea, and of keeping a true course by the compass, which he continually studied; and it was he who first discovered that some leagues west of the Azores lay the meridian of no variation—a meridian that has now moved eastward until it lies near London. Everywhere he interrogated explorers, discussed navigation with experienced captains, and sought the aid of new maps, improved instruments, and advancing knowledge; and yet mixed with all seem to have been a childlike vanity, credulity, and superstition, hard to reconcile with his courage and acumen.