216 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences^ Arts^ and Letters. 



West Indies and northward, reported much codfish, but no 

 gold. Where the carcase is there the eagles gather. JJhi mel, 

 ibi apes. 



Onward from 1511 the name America appears in most 

 geographies, and from 1520 in most maps But it long de- 

 noted no more than a portion of our southern hemisphere 

 which was itself up to the year 1548 reckoned rather an island 

 in the West Indies than a continent. Tlie earliest known MS. 

 map bearing the name America, is supposed to date from 

 1514. It was drawn by Leonardo da Vinci, and is among the 

 treasures of the British museum. (R. H. Major, p. 888.) The 

 extension of the name is worth tracing, yet not easy to trace. 



On the Nuremberg globe of 1520 the southern part of the 

 new continent is inscribed, America vel Brasilia sive papagalli 

 frra, and the name for some decades after seems no more than 

 commensurate with Brazil. 



The name "America" in English cannot be traced back 

 of 1520, and then it appears in an anonymous work " touching 

 dyvers straunge regyons and the new found landys.'' It is 

 thus introduced : 



" But this new lands fouude lately 

 Been called America by cause only 

 Americus dj-d first tbem fynde." 



A year or two later was issued the first English book de- 

 scriptive of this America. In this book the new region is 

 spelled " Armenico." A century later Lord Bacon (vol. xiii. 

 p. 196), speaks of " Mexico, Peru, Chili and other parts of the 

 West Indies.'" 



The Landshut cosmography of 1524 calls America noiv a 

 fourth part of the world — but adds that it is an island. ^^Quo- 

 niam marl undique clauditur insula merito appellatur." 



Copernicus, in 1543, writes that his theory was confirmed 

 anew by taking into account the islands brought to light in 

 his time, and especially America, which, owing to its magni- 

 tude still unascertained, men thought to be another world, a?/er 



