HOW COLUMBUS REACHED LAND.
A Flight of Birds Changed the History of America.
WHEN Columbus sailed westward over the unknown Atlantic, he expected to reach Zipangu (Japan). After several days' sail from Gomera, one of the Canary Islands, he became uneasy at not discovering Zipangu, which, according to his reckoning, should have been 216 nautical miles more to the east. After a long discussion he yielded to the opinion of Martin Alonzo Pinzon, the commander of the Pinta, and steered to the southwest. Pinzon was guided in his opinion by a flight of parrots toward the southwest. The effect of this change in his course curiously exemplifies the influence of small and apparently trivial events in the world's history. If Columbus, resisting the counsel of Pinzon, had kept his original route, he would have entered the warm current of the Gulf Stream, have reached Florida, and then probably have been carried to Cape Hatteras and Virginia. The result would probably have been to give the present United States a Roman Catholic Spanish population instead of a Protestant English one, a circumstance of immeasurable importance. "Never," wrote Humboldt, "had the flight of birds more important consequences. It may be said to have determined the first settlements on the new continent and its distribution between the Latin and Germanic races."—Selected. "SOME people talk so fast they haven't time to think."