Charles Raymond Beazley

“ They sailed along the coast, says Vespucci, for 80 leagues to the province of Parias (or Lariab) , and then 870 leagues more, always to the north-west, to the “finest harbour in the world,” which from this description should be in British Columbia or thereabouts. Thence 100 leagues more to north and north-east to the islands of the people called “Iti,” from which they returned to Spain, reaching Cadiz on the 15th of October 1498. Still following Vespucci’s own statement, he, on the 16th of May 1499, started on a second voyage in a fleet of three ships under Alonzo de Ojeda (Hojeda) . ”

“ From the Italian original (of which four printed copies still exist, without place or date, but probably before 1507) a French version was made; and from the latter a Latin translation, published at St Dié in Lorraine in April 1507, and immediately made use of in the Cosmogrophiae Introductio (St Dié, 1507) of Martin Waldseemüller (Hylacomylus) , professor of cosmography in St Dié University. Here we have perhaps the first suggestion in a printed book that the newly discovered fourth part of the world should be called “ America, because Americus discovered it.” ”