Show IN THE NAME AMERICA millions lon slag sing america chely few know the origin of the nanie name its history and its symbolism are described in a communication to the national geographic society by john it II finley is as follows america a nane that was first 11 heard eard on the planet or tit at any rate first put on a printed page according to the be best bea A authorities in the of st die among the mountains in the east cast of france often called the baptismal font of america on a pilgrimage to this valley of the some sears ago I 1 found still standing the cloisters where the scholars had lived who wrote the introduction tro to Itol Ptole mys cosmography the book in which it was suggested that the name america be given to the newly nevoy discovered fourth continent and who prepared the now dow famous map on which the emerging continent was 10 identified stifled there too I 1 found the site of the old printing shop and the house loelf in which tl the ie printer jean basin had lived at the beginning of the war the germans had occupied it and in 1917 1017 their guns looked down upon it from the blue line of the the cloisters close under the mountains I 1 found in a recent aud and second pilgrimage had not been damaged cut but there were many houses that had been destroyed by shell or by wanton tire though jean basins was still standing europe could not readily forget the geography of its infancy and childhood but america began from its god fearing settlement with an astronomy of infinite distances with a geography partaking of the sky shy as well as of the sea iea and land As there was no feudal system of fco clety for america to unlearn beginning as it did with the compact and constitutional so BO there was no physical theory of the universe for it to abandon it was democratic and copernican from froin its first national consciousness ness with tills this copernican of 0 the universe america should be the 1 least east provincial of the continents for aln filid and africa as well its as burcope ifill remember the old cosmography ind in some darker is still cling to it |