America

One of the great divisions of the earth’s surface, so called from Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine navigator, who visited South America in 1499. It is composed of two vast peninsulas called North and South America, extending in a continuous line 9000 miles, connected by the Isthmus of Panama or Darien, which is only 28 miles wide at its narrowest part. The physical features of this large continent are on a most gigantic scale, comprising the greatest lakes, rivers, valleys, etc., in the world; and its discovery, which may be said to have doubled the habitable globe, is an event so grand and interesting that nothing parallel to it can be expected to occur again in the history of mankind. Upon its discovery, in the latter half of the 15th century, colonists, settlers, warriors, statesmen, and adventurers of all nations began to flock to its shores, until after a lapse of nearly four centuries of wars, struggles, civilization, progre , and amalgamation of the more powerful races, and weakne and decay of the effete, it ranks in wealth and enlightenment as the first of the great divisions of the earth. Of the different races, governments, etc., occupying its area, it is not nece ary here to speak; events of importance in their histories will be found under appropriate headings in this work.