AMERICA

Let us see America first.

On a modern map of the Western Hemisphere America is as easy to see as the Decorations on the breast of a Rear Admiral of a Dry Dock.

One wonders how it escaped being discovered so long!

But when you look at this map of the Western Hemisphere as it appeared about a thousand years ago, when Lief Ericsen discovered New England, you will understand that discovering America in those days was no child’s play.

Nevertheless, Lief, the son of Eric, did not think much of his find.

How could a lowbrowed viking be expected to understand Boston, much less what was going to be Boston in a thousand years!

After writing his Impressions of America in obscure Runes on a conspicuous rock, Lief pulled up his anchor and sailed home to Norway.

No one could decipher the Runes, but everybody suspected what they meant.

And Lief was justly punished for his rudeness, his statue stands (so runs the tale) in the Fenway of Boston to this day. America was not discovered again for nearly five hundred years.

Then Christopher Columbus took a hand, but though he made four trips to the New World, Columbus carelessly neglected to write a book or even a magazine article on his Impressions of America.

A new path in Navigation, just as in Art or Literature, once shown, is easy to follow, and seven years later an Italian plagiarist named Amerigo discovered America all over again and copyrighted the whole continent in his own name.

By this time, as the accompanying map will show, the continent of America had gained considerably in bulk and offered an easy mark to the horde of discoverers who came in the wake of Amerigo.

And still they come—and though it is too late to secure a copyright on the continent they never fail to copyright their impressions of America.