SOME RESULTS OF THESE VOYAGES.--The results of these voyages were many and
important. They furnished a better knowledge of the coast; they proved the
existence of a great mass of land called the New World, but still supposed
to be a part of Asia; they secured Brazil for Portugal, and led to the
naming of our continent.

WHY THE NEW WORLD WAS CALLED AMERICA.--In the party sent by the king of
Portugal to explore the coast of Brazil, was an Italian named Amerigo
Vespucci (ah-ma'ree-go ves-poot'chee), or Americus Vespucius, who had
twice before visited the coast of South America. Of these three voyages
and of a fourth Vespucius wrote accounts, They were widely read, led to
the belief that he had discovered a new or fourth part of the world, and
caused a German professor of geography to suggest that this fourth part
should be called America. The name was applied first to what is now
Brazil, then to all South America, and finally also to North America, when
it was found, long afterward, that North America was part of the new
continent and not part of Asia.

[Illustration: THE FIRST PRINTED SUGGESTION OF THE NAME AMERICA. [5] Part
of a page from Waldseemüller's book _Cosmographie Introductio_, printed in
1507, now in the Lenox Library, New York.]

BALBOA DISCOVERS THE PACIFIC.--The man who led the way to the discovery
that America was not part of Asia was Balbo'a. [6] He came to the eastern
border of Panama (1510) with a band of Spaniards seeking gold. There they
founded the town of Darien and in time made Balboa their commander. He
married the daughter of a chief, made friends with the Indians, and heard
from them of a great body of water across the mountains. This he
determined to see, and in 1513, with Indian guides and a party of