378 NATURAL SCIENCE [June 



by whom he was sent to Spain about 1490, and was employed in 

 the fitting out of both the second and the third expeditions of 

 Columbus. Vespucci's claim to be the discoverer of America rests 

 chiefly upon his own word, since, as we have seen, the evidence of 

 his name alone is not very convincing. He said that he went on an 

 expedition which left Cadiz about May 10th, 1497, and after stopping 

 at the Canary Islands came " at the end of twenty-seven days upon 

 a coast which we thought to be that of a continent." Unfortunately, 

 contemporary history is silent regarding this voyage, and it has been 

 proved that from the middle of May, 1497, for the next twelve 

 months Vespucci was busily engaged at Seville and San Lucar in 

 fitting out the fleet with which Columbus sailed on his third voyage. 

 Vespucci, of course, did go to America with three subsequent expedi- 

 tions, concerning each of which he wrote a narrative. It is said 

 that the name America was first proposed for the Western Continent 

 by Martin Waldseemliller in his " Introduction to Cosmography," 

 published in 1507. In a MS. map of Henricus Glareanus, dating 

 from 1510, the legend Terra America is placed against South 

 America. 



It is another remarkable coincidence that on February 3rd of 

 the present year a portrait of Amerigo Vespucci was discovered in 

 Florence, forming part of an altar-piece by Domenico Ghirlandajo in 

 the Ognissanti Church. A reproduction of this portrait, with an 

 admirable account, was given in the Scientific American for March 1 9th. 

 The existence of this picture was well known to Vasari, Bocchi, and 

 their contemporaries. The Vespucci Chapel, however, was white- 

 washed in 1616, and the painting, which was a fresco, was thus 

 hidden. Search has been made for it before, but in vain, for two 

 reasons : first, that there were two Vespucci Chapels in the church, 

 and the one of them in which the fresco has at last been found 

 passed to another family in 1616; secondly, because Vasari de- 

 scribed the work as being over an arch, whereas it really is under 

 an arch. It was eventually found to be in the Chapel of St Eliza- 

 beth, Queen of Portugal, behind Matteo Rosselli's canvas of the saint. 

 The lunette of the altar-piece represents a standing figure of the 

 Virgin, the broad folds of whose mantle, supported by angels, 

 surround the members of the Vespucci family. Six women kneel 

 on her left and six men on her right. Kneeling next the Virgin is 

 the figure of a young man, who presents a three-quarter face view, 

 and this is the head identified as that of Amerigo Vespucci. He 

 must then have been about twenty years of age. 



Deschnev 



In 1648 the Cossack Deschnev sailed from Kolyma past the north- 

 east point of Asia down to the mouth of the river Anadyr on the 



