1893.] Archeology and Ethnology. 755 
ARCHEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY. 
Eighth International Congress of Americanists, Paris, 
1890.—M. De Quatrefages was President, and this was the last public 
function at which he assisted. 
Dr. Brinton was one of the Vice Presidents and presided at one of 
the meetings. M. Desiré Pector, of Nicaragua, but resident at Paris, 
was Secretary General. There were four or five hundred adherents, 
about one-half of whom were in attendance. 
The questions for discussion were prepared in advance by the com- 
mittee and announced to the members by circular. One group was as 
to the 
HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY OF AMERICA. 
The first question in that group was that presented in 1875 and dis- 
cussed at nearly every Congress since; Whether the name “America,” 
given to the Western Continent, was not taken from the chain 
of mountains of a similar name which form cordilleras between Lake 
Nicaragua and the Mosquito Coast, rather than from the discoverer, 
Americus Vespuccius? The affirmative was maintained by Prof. 
Jules Marcou and M. Lambert de St. Bris. The contrary opinion, to 
wit :-that the name of America was given at San Die near Nancy, and 
published by Waldseemüller under his Cosmographia Introductio was 
maintained by MM. Jimenez de la Espada, Dr. Hamy, Desiré Pector, 
Julio Caleano, and others. At the close of the discussion, the Presi- 
dent remarked that after the conclusive communications which they 
had made in favor of the transmission of the name from Americus 
Vespucci, the question as to the derivation of the name was forever 
decided and settled. “And,” said he, “I hope that it will never fig- 
ure on the programme of our future Congresses.” The question as to 
an earlier discovery of America was maintained by Mr. Lambert de 
St. Bris, who attempted to prove that there had been a voyage of 
Cubot earlier than that of Americus Vespuccius, and also the legend 
of one still earlier by Cortereal; but none of these met any favor 
from the Congress, and on the other hand, were en denounced 
as traditions and unsupported by evidence. 
Mrs. Shipley (née Brown) entered a paper on the * “ Missing Records 
of Scandinavian Discovery,” declaring her belief in their existence - 
and attributing their suppression to the authorities of the Roman 
Catholic Church.  . 
