666 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 



it Oil Vespucci, either as a poetical license or as a sort of joke without 

 any consequence. 



Unhappily the matter has been taken very seriously, more so than 

 the originator even thought of; for the Vosgian Gymnasium took very 

 quietly tbe correction that Vespucci was not the discoverer, and they 

 were prepared to do the same as to their naming of America from 

 Amerigho Vespucci; only the matter was considered as too trifling by 

 those interested in the question, such as the son of Colombo, to require 

 a correction. The attribuiion of the discovery to Cristoforo Colombo 

 was considered sufficient; and that the name of Amerrique has nothing 

 to do with Vespucci was so evident and such a matter of course that 

 nobody cared to correct the vagary of a Vosgian poet. 



The name Amerrique continued to be used among the people, just 

 like the names Chryse, El Dorado, Quivira, etc., and the map makers 

 wrote the name America as they pleased, on many places of the new 

 continent, without following in the least the proposition of the Vosgian 

 Gymjasium, which passed entirely unnoticed until found out more 

 than three centuries after by Alexander de Humboldt. If the geogra- 

 phers who constructed maps during the sixteenth century had thought 

 that the New World was named from the Christian name of Vespucci, 

 as that name varied according to the numerous pamphlets of his third 

 voyage and his "Quatuor Navigationes" into Alberico, Amerigo, 

 Amergio, Almerigo, Albertutio, Damerigho, Armenico, Morigo, some 

 of them would have certainly used such names as Albericia, Amerigia 

 Amerigonia, Amergia, Almerigia, Albertutia, Armenica, Morigia. But 

 the name America is ne varietur, without a single case of different spell- 

 ing, showing that Amerrique was in general circulation, and that they 

 made use of it without thinking if it was in honor of Vespucci or not. 

 '' Le mot etait dans I'air," as the French say for all popular expres- 

 sion, and all the variations of the Christian name of Vespucci have not 

 the slightest influence on it. 



Little by little the aboriginal name of Amerrique and its derivative 

 America, took possession, first of the maps, and afterwards of all the 

 chancelleries and state departments of all Europe, the Spanish one 

 included, without much thought about the injustice committed toward 

 Colombo, or any desire on their part to raise Vespucci above the very 

 small position he occupied as third rate navigator. 



The whole is an example of a sort of process of infiltration, coining 

 from the masses where it unconsciously originated, entirely outside of 

 the doing of a few Latinists lost iu their books and manuscripts, and 

 which eventually covered half of the earth's surface, carrying pele-mSle 

 l>artisans and adversaries of Colombo and Vespucci, sure that in the 

 end truth will prevail over all false preteusioiis, obscurities, and errors. 



After all the incorrect reference of the name of the New World to 

 Amerigho Vespucci has lasted a little less than four centuries, even less 

 than the forgetfulness which has kept in the background the discov- 



