" Others refer to an obscure sentence of Las Casas, but
others believe that the ball was dropped in the box by accident,
either when the box was prepared for the vault or at some time when in
the course of the centuries the vault may have been casually opened as
was the adjoining vault in 1783. At what time the remains were
enclosed in this box and the inscriptions placed on the same it is
impossible to determine; it may have been in Seville, or in the early
days in Santo Domingo, or at a later date, perhaps when the epitaphs
were removed from the vault.
The remainder of the old altar platform was carefully examined but no
other vaults or remains were discovered. With reference to the bones
"of a deceased person" transferred in 1795 a logical conclusion can be
reached: Christopher Columbus, his son Diego, and his grandson Louis
were all buried in the Santo Domingo cathedral; the caskets, with
inscriptions, of the first and third were found in 1877 and there are
no other vaults under the old altar platform; therefore the remains
taken away in 1795 with pieces of a casket without inscription, or the
inscription of which had become illegible, were most probably those of
Diego Columbus.
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