Seville; famous bones.

The five-hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America is only six years away; it is therefore not a moment too soon for a new dispute to break out over the place where Columbus's body actually lies buried. Heretofore, the cathedrals of Seville and of Santo Domingo in the West Indies have both claimed the bones of the Great Discoverer. Several new elements in the case have made their appearance, however, in particular a procedure devised by a scientist in California that is supposed to be able to identify the place a person grew up in through isotopic examination of his tood enamel. Applying this test to a molar from Santo Domingo would presumably prove whether or not the body buried there was Genoese, but it has been discounted in advance by a professor at the University of Genoa, Gaetano Ferro, who says the test would necessarily have a large margin of error. Furthermore, Professor Ferro asserts, the Santo Domingo bones are probably those not of Columbus but of his son Diego. Meanwhile, a former director of the great research library in Seville, the Archivas de las Indias, says that the bones of Columbus are not wholly in one place or the other, but are divided between the two tombs. According to this authority, Jose de la Pena Camara, the Seville bones were removed from Santo Domingo in 1795, when that part of the island of Hispaniola was ceded by Spain to the French, and were transferred to Havana, whence they were moved to Seville when Cuba became independent in 1898. The bones now resting in Santo domingo were found during repairs to the cathedral presbytery in 1877. The Dominicans have said that the bones removed in 1795 were not demonstrably those of Columbus, while the Spaniards maintain that the 1877 find consisted of the bones not of Columbus but of his nephew. With respect to this quarrel, the Dominican historian Pedro Troncoso Sanchez wrote recently in a Spanish newspaper: "On many occasions, including this one, it happens that the force of a desire has closed the path to the discovery of the truth." On that point at least there appears to be agreement.