was discovered by the Cabots.]

The English now began to see what an immense extent of land they had
found beyond the Atlantic. They could not tell, however, whether it
was a continent by itself or a part of Asia. Like everybody in Europe,
they called it the New World, but all that name really meant then
was simply the New Lands across the sea.

[Footnote 9: Labrador (Lab'ra-dor).]


26. How the New World came to be called America.--But not many years
after this the New World received the name by which we now call it.
An Italian navigator whose first name was Amerigo[10] made a voyage
to it after it had been discovered by Columbus and the Cabots. He
wrote an account of what he saw, and as this was the first printed
description of the continent, it was named from him, AMERICA.

[Footnote 10: Amerigo (A-ma-ree'go): his full name was Amerigo
Vespucci (A-ma-ree'go Ves-poot'chee), or, as he wrote it in Latin,
Americus Vespucius.]


27. Summary.--In 1497 John Cabot and his son, from Bristol, England,
discovered the mainland or continent of North America, and took
possession of it for England. The next year they came over and sailed
along the eastern coast of what is now the United States.

An Italian whose first name was Amerigo visited the New World
afterward and wrote the first account of the mainland which was