Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia / being a concordance of choice tributes to the great Genoese, his grand discovery, and his greatness of mind and purpose

by Unknown

TRIFLING INCIDENT.

The Venerable Frederic William Farrar, D. D., F. R. S., Archdeacon of Westminster. Born in Bombay, August 7, 1831. From his "Lectures and Addresses."

There are some who are fond of looking at the apparently trifling incidents of history, and of showing how the stream of centuries has been diverted in one or other direction by events the most insignificant. General Garfield told his pupils at Hiram that the roof of a certain court house was so absolute a watershed that the flutter of a bird's wing would be sufficient to decide whether a particular rain-drop should make its way into the Gulf of St. Lawrence or into the Gulf of Mexico. The flutter of a bird's wing may have affected all history. Some students may see an immeasurable significance in the flight of parrots, which served to alter the course of Columbus, and guided him to the discovery of North and not of South America.