Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1904-05-05
FIRST MAP OF AMERICA.
Lately Found by ~Geographer in the
French Department of
the Voges.

After nearly four centuries of mys-
terry the first map on which the name
OF America was used to designate the
western hemisphere has been found.
1t was made by Martin Waldseemuller,
a ~geographer and photographer of the
little city of st. Diel, situated in the
French department of the Vosges.
Every since the year 1907 the world
has known of a little Latin book. print
ed in st. Diel and made famous because
1t first advocated that the new hemis-
phere should be called America, after
America Vespucci.
Il do not see who can rightfully OBJ
iect to its being called Land of Amer
ico,' or America" said the writer,
from America, or Amerigo, the name
OF the sagacious man of genius who
discovered it. since the names Europe
and Asia were derived from the names
of women"
From certain references in the book
1t was evident that it was accompanied
by some sort of map, yet the map was
missing. Copies were found of a mar
which g~eographers believe belonged to
the book, but still no one knew what
had become of the original. 1t was
finally proved that Waldseemuller
wrote the book, and certain maps were
found bearing his name, but not the
coveted map for which the world had
been seeking so long.
The search had been abandoned and
the subject almost forgotten when a
German professor stumbled over the
missing map in the princely library of
the castle of Wolfegg. Here it had lain
hidden amid tones of rich morocco and
parchment.
The professors name was Joseph
Fischer, of Feldkirch, who was making
an examination of the library of Prince
Francis, of Walburg -Wolfegg. He
found "a volume of great size" says
the Monthly Bulletin of the Interna-
tional Bureau of American Republics,
antiquarian folio, Gothic style, sub
s~tantially bound, and having for its
covers two beech boards, supplied with
clasps or brass fasteners, in which we're
found united, forming a kind of atlas,
various leaves of three distinct maps.
zone of these was the original VALID
seemuller map of 1907, which had been
SO persistently searched for and Of
which so much had been spoken, mag
nificentiy printed in IL sheets, and in
an excellent state of preservation"
The prince permitted the mar to be
photographed, so that the facsimiles
which have been made public are cor
rect reproductions.
When its parts are put together the
Waldseemuller map measures eight feet
wide and four feet high. 1t represents
the new continent with a vagueness
which seems comical to a man of to-
day. Yet when one considers that it
was drawn only Is years after Column
bus had crossed the Atlantic on his
first voyage, it is possible to understand
the c%loudiness with which the new land
is bounded. A few of the West Indies
are depicted by clumsy blotches, and
North America is pinched into a strip
of land, which looks more like an at
tenuated island than a continent. The
proportions of South America are more
near the truth, and represent to a GER
tain extent the V shape character of
that continent. The name America"
appears written transversely in capital
letters in the southern part of the con-
tinent to the north of the tropic of
Capricorn.