While Columbus' great discovery has overshadowed the work of all the other explorers and navigators in the Western Ocean at this time, it must not be forgotten that during this century a large number of hardy, heroic men, with a determination not due to ignorance or to mere foolhardiness, but with purposes as sincere and courage as high as our Arctic explorers, accomplished wonderful results in the enlargement of human knowledge of the Western Continent and its inhabitants and varied products. Even before Columbus himself had reached the American continent, Amerigo Vespucci as well as the two Cabots had already touched it. Vespucci's biographers insist that his first voyage to America was made in 1497 and that he coasted along the northern shore of South America and into the Gulf of Mexico, returning to Spain November 15, 1498. It was in this latter year that Columbus first touched the mainland. In 1499 Vespucci went out with a second fleet and, keeping his former course, he succeeded in reaching the mouth of the Orinoco River, and returned { 265} to Cadiz in 1500. He made a third voyage in 1501 and reached as far south as 52° of latitude, having coasted the South American shore from 5° south latitude to within 4° of Cape Horn. The fourth voyage was undertaken the next year, and on this Vespucci explored portions of the coast of Brazil. While it is usually said, and it must be confessed with some justification, that Columbus was deprived of what may be considered his proper privilege as first discoverer in not having the continent of America named after him, there is no doubt that Vespucci deserved highly of mankind for his daring explorations and his expert seamanship and hardy navigation. The scientific world owes him still more for the publication of his maps and detailed description of the American coast. These served to spread widely definite knowledge with regard to the new continent. Above all others, with the single exception of Columbus, even if that exception must be made, he deserved to have the Continent named after him. [Footnote 23]
[Footnote 23: The news of Amerigo Vespucci's discovery seems to have spread rapidly throughout Europe and his writings became familiar within a few years to a much greater number of people than we would think possible in the limited means of communication at the time. In discussing "The Four Elements," the Morality Play, in the chapter on English Literature lines are quoted to show that the play was written within twenty years of the discovery of America. Ordinarily it would be assumed that this would mean Columbus' discovery in 1492, but the whole passage shows that the reference was to Amerigo's, in Latin Americus', discovery of the Continent. The complete passage is: