COLUMBUS' LANDFALL
SIR,—In the interesting article contained in your July 2rst issue, " Animal Light and the Moon," reference is made incidentally to the landfall of Columbus on " one of the easterly islands of the Bahamas," and it is suggested that the " strange light" seen by the crew of the Santa Maria a short while before the land was sighted, " like the flame of a small candle alternately raised and lowered," was in fact due to luminous slime dis- charged by the worm known to science as Odontosyllis. From this an inference is drawn that Cat Island and not Watling was Columbus's landfall.
The evidence that Watling Island is the true Guanahani of Columbus's diary is to be found in an article by Lieut.- Commdr. R. T. Gould, RN., in the Geographical journal in 1927; and I would only add that, having myself visited both islands on more than one occasion, I have no doubt whatever that the honour belongs to Wading Island, since it conforms precisely with the description of it given in the fragments of the diary of Columbus which have been preserved for us by Las Casas, whereas Cat Island does not. The only doubt that ever troubled me was due to the episode of the " strange light ": and this has now been resolved by Professor Yonge's description of the efforts of the obliging West Indian worm, of which he writes, to carry out the age-old feminine practice of attracting the opposite sex.—Yours truly,
CHARLES ORR.
57 Hillfield Court, N.W. 3.
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