In your edition of Jan. 21st, 1897, you wrote of the swallowing up by the sea of Robinson Crusoe's Island, or the island of Juan Fernandez. Now I have always heard this island called "Robinson Crusoe's Island," and I think the reason is, that Alexander Selkirk was cast away there, and on his adventures the story of Robinson Crusoe was written by Daniel Defoe. But I have read "Robinson Crusoe," and the island as described by him cannot be the Island of Juan Fernandez, but must be one of the Windward Islands in the Caribbean Sea, off the mouth of the great Orinoco River in South America, and I think is the Island of Tobago; this best fits the careful description of Daniel Defoe.
In Crusoe's first exploration of the island he says:
"I came in view of the sea to the west, and it being a very clear day, I fairly descried land,... extending from the W. to the W.S.W.... It could not be less than fifteen or twenty leagues off."
There is no land situated W.S.W. from Juan Fernandez. W.S.W. from the island of Tobago lies the great island of Trinidad. When Crusoe attempts to sail around the island he says:
"I perceived a strong and most furious current."
This could be no other than the current from the mouth of the great Orinoco River.
But what settles the matter is that after Crusoe had taught Friday to speak English, he had a conversation with him, in which Crusoe asks Friday:
"How far it was from our island to the shore, and whether the canoes were not often lost. He told me there was no danger; no canoes ever lost; but after a little way out to sea, there was a current and wind always one way in the morning, the other in the afternoon. This I understood to be no more than the sets of the tide, as going out or coming in; but I afterward understood it was occasioned by the great draft and reflux of the mighty river Oroonoko, in the mouth of which river, as I thought afterwards, our island lay; and that this land which I perceived to the W.S.W. was the great island Trinidad."
I like your Great Round World, Mr. Editor, but I like Robinson Crusoe, too. I like to know just where he was cast away, and hope if I am right you will tell other boys who read "Robinson Crusoe" the true place, where Daniel Defoe describes poor Crusoe as living all those weary years.
Edgar B.
Aged twelve years.
Chicago, Ill.