Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 38.djvu/704

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

mony was adduced as to Vespucci being called Amerigo as early as 1492 and 1495, in the face of which M. Marcou had been compelled to modify his assertions on that point. Dr. Hamy produced the copy of a map made in Malorca, in 1439, on which was marked in an ancient handwriting the receipt of the cost price in gold from Amerigo Vespucci. The Congress with great unanimity approved an observation by Dr. Hellmann that this question should henceforth be regarded as removed from the programme of its discussions. Dr. Hellmann mentioned a document, printed at Lyons in 1546, in which the compiler purposed to describe briefly America, which is also called L'Ameque, "a group of islands of which little is known." M. Gabriel Marcel, of the Bibliothèque Rationale, called attention to a wooden globe in that institution, called "the green globe" which is supposed to have been made in 1513, and is one of the oldest documents on which the name of America appears. On it the land is shown pierced by a strait passing through the heights of Panama, by which it is divided into two large islands.

M. Gaffarel, of the University of Dijon, gave an account of Portuguese voyages of discovery in the Columbian epoch. The fitting out and leading of these expeditions seem to have been monopolized by the Corte Real family; and claims are made that in 1464, or twenty-eight years before Columbus, Johovaz Corte Real discovered the land of Kabuljane—Canada, or Newfoundland. The first voyage authenticated by documents is that of Gaspard Corte Real, in the year 1500, in which he discovered the Terra Verdex—Newfoundland, or Labrador. The next year he undertook a new voyage, with three ships, only one of which came back. The report of these voyages is contained in letters of the Venetian ambassador Pasqualigo, and the merchant Alberto Cantino, to the Duke of Ferrara. It is inferred from them that the expedition reached some region in the far north—perhaps Baffin's Bay, or some neighboring water. Venetian beads have been found used as ornaments by the natives of the coast. In 1502 Miguel Corte Real undertook a new voyage, in search of his brother. He also disappeared. The interest of the Portuguese was afterward turned toward Brazil, discovered by Cabral, which was visited by Amerigo Vespucci in 1503.

The sessions of the second day, under the presidency of Señor Altamirano—who was introduced by M. de Quatrefages as a representative of the pre-Columbian races—was devoted to the archæology of America. Dr. Seler presented the last number of the publications of the Berlin Museum für Volkerkunde, containing an interesting chapter of the Aztec original text of P. Sahagun, with pictures and descriptions of thirty-six Mexican divinities, translations, and commentary. He also described the wall-