APPENDIX.
380
good old rule, that ought to be kept in mind in curious research as well as territorial dealings, " D o not disturb the ancient landmarks."
Note
to the Revised
Edition
of 1848.—The Baron de Humboldt, in his
" Examen critique de l'histoire de la géographie du nouveau continent," pub lished in 1837, speaks repeatedly in high terms of the ability displayed in the above examination of the route of Columbus, and argues at great length and quite conclusively in support of the opinion contained in it.
Above all, he pro
duces a document hitherto unknown, and the great importance of which had been discovered by M . Valeknaer and himself in 1832.
This is a map made
in 1500 by that able mariner Juan de la Cosa, who accompanied Columbus in his second voyage and sailed with other of the discoverers.
In this map, of
which the Baron de Humboldt gives an engraving, the islands as laid down agree completely with the bearings and distances given in the journal of Columbus, and establishes the identity of San Salvador, or Cat Island, and Guanahani. " I feel happy," says M . de Humboldt, " to be enabled to destroy the incer titudes (which rested on this subject) by a document as ancient as it is unknown ; a document which confirms irrevocably the arguments which Mr. Washington Irving has given in his work against the hypotheses of the Turk's Island." In the present revised edition the author feels at liberty to give the merit of the very masterly paper on the route of Columbus, where it is justly due.
It
was furnished him at Madrid by the late commander Alexander Slidell Mac kenzie, of the United States navy, whose modesty shrunk from affixing his name to an article so calculated to do him credit, and which has since chal lenged the high eulogiums of men of nautical science.
No. XVIII. PRINCIPLES HAVE
UPON BEEN
WHICH
T H E SUMS M E N T I O N E D
REDUCED
INTO
MODERN
IN THIS
W O R K
CURRENCY.
IN the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the mark of silver, which was equal to 8 ounces or to 5 0 castillanos was divided into 6 5 reals, and each real into 34 maravedis ; so that there were 2 2 1 0 maravedis in the mark of silver. Among other silver coins there was the real of 8, which consisting of 8 reals, was, within a small fraction, the eighth part of a mark of silver, or