The great length of coast line explored proved that the land was not a mere island, but that Vespucius had found a new continent in the southern hemisphere,--off the coast of Asia, as was then supposed.

This for a time was called the "Fourth Part" of the world,--the other three parts being Europe, Asia, and Africa.

But in 1507 a German professor published a little book on geography, in which he suggested that the new part of the world discovered by Americus, the part which we call Brazil, should be called America.
As Columbus was not supposed to have discovered a new world, but merely a new route to Asia, this suggestion seemed very proper, and soon the word "America" began to appear on maps as the name of Brazil.

After a while it was applied to all South America, and finally to North America also.
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The Pacific discovered; the Mexican Gulf Coast explored.%--A few years after the publication of the little book which gave the New World the name of America, a Spaniard named Balboa landed on the Isthmus of Panama, crossed it (1513), and from the mountains looked down on an endless expanse of blue water, which he called the South Sea, because when he first saw it he was looking south.
Meantime another Spaniard, named Ponce de Leon (pon'tha da la-on'), sailed with three ships from Porto Rico, in March, 1513, and on the 27th of that month came in sight of the mainland.