"Where Did Columbus Really Land?" '5-Year National Geographic Study Settles on a Different Bahamian Isle' by Boyce Rensberger (October 9, 1986) The Washington Post 1150 15th Street NW Washington, DC 20071 National Geographic magazine, joining a controversy that has tantalized historians, geographers and countless amateur invest- igators for centuries, said yesterday that most history books are wrong when they say Christopher Columbus' first landing in the New World was on the Bahamian island of Watling or, as it has been called since 1926 San Salvador. Columbus really landed 65 miles to the southeast, on another Bahamian island, a narrow, 9-mile long patch of uninhabited land called Samana Cay, the magazine said after a five-year study that included a new translation of Columbus' log and a computer simulation of the Italian explorer's voyage. Because Columbus' log does not give the exact location of the island he named San Salvador, scholars have debated exactly where he first went ashore, was greeted by people he named "Indians," claimed the land for the Spanish crown and opened a new age of world history. At least nine Bahamian islands have been advanced as the true San Salvador by such disparate figures as Washington Irving, Alexander von Humboldt and Edwin Link. Early in this century, opinion converged so confidently on Watling Island that in 1926 it was renamed San Salvador. In 1942 any remaining debate withered when the influential Harvard historian Samuel Eliot Morison pronounced unequivocally that Watling was the true San Salvador. About five years ago, however, scholars began to challenge Morison's claims and it became academically respectable to reopen the debate. All agreed that the explorer's first landfall was in the Bahamas, but advocates have arisen for islands as much as 450 miles apart in the archipelago. Drawn to the fray, Joseph Judge, senior associate editor of National Geographic magazine, launched his own study, commission- ing a variety of specialists to make a new translation of Columbus' log, sail the route electronically through a computer programmed with relevant clues, and dig on the now uninhabited Samana Cay to establish that Indians lived there in Columbus' time. "We believe we have solved, after five centuries, one of the grandest of all geographic mysteries," Judge said at a news conference yesterday. "We think we have demonstrated con- clusively that this matter is finally settled." The Geographic's case, detailed in the magazine's November issue, has already converted some scholars. "They're right beyond any reasonable doubt," said Robert Fuson, a University of Florida geographer who had championed Grand Turk, one of the southernmost Bahamas. "I wish it had been my island but . . . I now can see the folly of my ways. This is really a vindication of Gustavus Fox." Fox, who had been Abraham Lincoln's assistant secretary of the Navy, used methods somewhat similar to Judge's and argued for Samana Cay in 1882. The starting point for the Geographic's study, as for most others, is a transcript of Columbus' log. The original disap- peared centuries ago but there survives an "abstract" made by a contemporary, Bartolome de las Casas. It contains what is probably a verbatim copy of Columbus' account of the landfall and his travels among nearby islands. Judge commissioned Eugene Lyon, a specialist in old Spanish documents, to make a new, literal translation of de las Casas' transcript. He also asked Luis Marden, a retired Geographic staffer and trans-Atlantic sailor, and his wife, Ethel Marden, a mathematician, to plot Columbus' voyage from the Canary Islands day by day according to the log. The log gives each day's compass headings and Columbus' estimate of how far he traveled. The Mardens also made corrections for currents that would have pushed the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria southward and additional corrections for leeway, the sideways skid of a ship when the wind comes from one side. Judge said these corrections were significant. Morison made no such corrections, so his westward track took him to Watling. The corrections in the Marden-Judge track, though small in any one day, would have accumulated over the voyage's 33 days, putting Columbus 65 miles to the south, at Samana. Judge also asked experts at Control Data Corp. to write a computer program that would "sail" electronically. Control Data vice president Robert Lillestrand headed this effort, producing a program that made all the corrections and including a digitized map of the Caribbean islands. The computer searched for the first land that would have been visible from a crow's nest 60 feet above the water. The computer made landfall at Samana Cay. More convincing to some specialists, however, was another computerized sailing exercise. The de las Casas transcript gives general information on the directions and distances Columbus traveled from san Salvador to four other islands before going on to Cuba. Judge said one day's log is so specific that a location can be pinned down unequivocally. By running the course backward from that point, the computer showed that Columbus could have started only from Samana. Judge said the log's descriptions of the islands fit well with what he saw when he visited them. "All roads led to Samana," Judge said, "but Samana had always been considered uninhabited and uninhabitable. We had to find out whether there was any evidence people had lived there in 1492." On their first visit to Samana, Judge and his colleagues found pieces of Indian pottery. Charles and Nancy Hoffman, archeologists who devoted their careers to digging on Watling to learn about the Indians who greeted Columbus, were asked to try Samana. They soon found large amounts of pottery, a hearth and other evidence of nine small settlements. Not everyone is convinced by the Geographic's claim. Robert Power, a California restaurateur and amateur historian, said he still believes that the case for Grand Turk is stronger. Arne Molander, a Gaithersburg engineer. said he will still argue for Egg Island, some 240 miles to the northwest. All, however, agree that Morison's case for Watling is finished. Morison "deliberately, I'd say fraudulently, mistrans- lated the log, changing words around to suit his own preconceived notion," Fuson said. Judge does not think his Samana case will convince everyone: "I'd say we're 98 percent sure, but history grows. This will go on forever. It should go on forever." RENSBRG3.ART