THE BELIEF OF COLUMBUS.
Sir Arthur Helps, a popular English essayist and historian. Born, 1813; died, March 7, 1875. From his "Life of Columbus" (1869).
Columbus believed the world to be a sphere; he underestimated its size; he overestimated the size of the Asiatic continent. The farther that continent extended to the east, the nearer it came round to Spain.