The Naming of Ame7'ica. 217 



crhis terrarum. The great astronomer was before his age ia 

 geography also. So potent is a name that men still called 

 geographies " Ptolemies," as we now call a dictionary Webster, 

 though so metamorphosed that Webster would not recognize 

 it But the Ptolemy of 1540, only three years before the 

 death of Copernicus, inscribes the map of the western hemis- 

 phere Novce Insulce^ and its southern portion Insula Atlantica 

 quam vacant Brasilii et Amerkam. In the Ptolemy two years 

 later there is still no collective name for the north half of our 

 continent, but a strait runs through it labeled per hoc /return 

 iter paiet ad Molucas. 



The rapids at Montreal were named La Chine (China) be- 

 cause the pioneers there thought they could ascend the St. Law- 

 rence even into the Celestial Empire. 



Nor were these Frenchmen so far wrong as were their more 

 learned compatriots, for in " the Mirror of the World," issued 

 at Lyons in 1546, three years after the death of Copernicus, 

 we read : " Since Ptolemy no land called a continent has been 

 discovered except one called America, about which we are not 

 well assured, and several islands. As to America (which the 

 writer also calls LAmeque^) I place little reliance on those 

 who have been there, but speak of it so obscurely that one 

 cannot guess what their dreams mean." Two years before, 

 the Brazil map is inscribed America sen Insula Brazilii. The 

 Antwerp cosmography of 1545 inscribes the map of the West- 

 ern World on the southern part America^ and on the northern, 

 which is a narrow, elongated prolongation, Baccalearum^ a 

 word which means land of codfish. 



At length, in the Venice Ptolemy of 1548, forty-seven years 

 after the discovery of Brazil, the southern half of the New 

 World is mapped as a continent. A partir de 1548 touies les 

 cartes quefai examinees representent VAmeriiiue meridionale comme 

 un continent. So says Santarem, but his meaning is not clear, 

 for he seems also to say that the map of South America is in- 

 scribed Castill del Oro, Golden Castile. 

 15 



