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272 H. Vig7iaud does not prove that he was then major, for it was perfectly legal in similar cases to act as witness although still a minor.^ From the above brief observations, which are here merely indi- cated but which have been fully developed elsewhere, it may be seen that the data which have been employed to fix approximatively the age of Columbus at certain dates are wanting in consistency. If they were absolutely fixed and certain, the conclusions to be drawn from them would not be contradictory ; which, however, is the case, inasmuch as it follows from them that Columbus, who was not twenty-five years old on August 26, 1472, had already attained that age on March 20 of that same year. None of the documents which have been quoted in the above calculation mentions definitely the actual age of Columbus. But in 1887 one was discovered which gave this valuable information; the deed in question is the one bearing the date of October 31, 1470, wherein Columbus is described as then being over nineteen years of age. This document in fact completely destroyed all the fine quibbling which tended to prove that Columbus was born before such and such a date and after such and such another ; but, un- fortunately, those who had so exercised their ingenuity, instead of yielding to the force of the new evidence, sought only to make it fit in with their preconceived theories. The argument they adopted was the following: the deed of October 31, 1470, reads, " Christopher Columbus, son of Domenico, of more than nineteen years accom- plished " (" Christofiforus de Columbo filius Dominici, major annis decemnovem ").^ Well, then, this we are assured does not mean what it says : major annis decemnovem, more than nineteen years of age, or of nineteen years fully, or of nineteen years accomplished ; no, what this really means is : more than nineteen years of age but not yet twenty-five^; that is to say, that Columbus may then have beea twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, or twenty-four years of age at the date this deed was signed. All therefore that can be deduced from this deed, according to this argument, is that Columbus could not have been born before October 31, 1445, be- cause otherwise he must have been twenty-five years of age on Oc- tober 31, 1470, and consequently dispensed from requiring the au- thorization of his father ; or, that he could not have been born after ' Harrisse, op. cit., I. 227. ' See the text in Dociimenii, no. 34, and here in the appendix. ' " The expression used here means that Columbus had attained the majority of nineteen years, and not yet that of twenty-five." Harrisse, Christopher Colum- bus and the Bank of St. George (New York, 18881. p. 8g, note 4. See also Chrislophe Colomb dcvant I'Hisloire by the same author (Paris, iSgj), p. 65.