Then one day a professor who taught geography at the Monastery of
St. Di? in Alsace published a little book on geography. In it he
spoke of Europe, Asia and Africa, the three parts of the world as
known to the ancients. Then he spoke of the fourth part which had
been discovered by Amerigo Vespucci, by which he meant what we now
call South America. "And," continues this professor, "I do not see
what is rightly to hinder us calling this part Amerige or America,
that is, the land of Americus after its discoverer Americus."
This is the first time the word America was ever used, and little did
this old German professor, writing in his quiet Alsatian College,
think that he was christening the great double continent of the
New World. And as little did Amerigo think in writing his letter
to his old school fellow that he was to be looked upon as the
discoverer of the New World.
At first the new name came slowly into use and it appears for the
first time on a map made about 1514. In this map America is shown
as a great island continent lying chiefly south of the Equator.
All the voyages which Columbus had made had been north of the
Equator. No man yet connected the land south of the Equator with
him, and it was at first only to this south land that the name
America was given.
Thirty years and more went by. Many voyages were made, and it
became known for certain that Columbus had not reached the shores
of India by sailing west, and that a great continent barred the
way north as well as south of the Equator.
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