The New-York Historical Society evidently intended for Italian consumption, for upon its reaching Spain some years later, men were still alive who would have known whether such a voyage had ever been made and they AMERIGO VESPUCCI After a portrait in the Gallery of Famous Men in the UfHzi, Florence, Italy Gift of Miss Mary Madison McGuire, 1939 considered the story false, among them the able and conscientious historian Las Casas who disproved it from internal evidence, and this conclusion has been shared by about every investigator since, including Robertson, Navarrete, Humboldt, Washington Irving, etc. This puts squarely before us the fact that Columbus in dis- 84