The date 1497 is assigned as the year in which Amerigo Vespucci discovered the western continent. Vespucci was encouraged by Emanuel, King of Portugal, and, though probably lacking the inspiring genius and sublime courage of Columbus, through the accident of fortune he has perpetuated his name in the designation of half a hemisphere. Doubtless, Vespucci was the first to reach the mainland of the western continent, as Columbus did not touch the mainland until his third voyage in 1498, when he landed at the mouth of the Orinoco in South America. So entirely unsuspicious was the world at this time of a second continent, that the transcendent genius of Columbus never suspected the magnitude of his discovery, and he died in the belief that he had landed on the eastern shore of Asia. The next to essay a voyage to the New World was also a native of Southern Europe. John Cabot, the son of Giovanni Gabota, a native of Venice, who had settled in Bristol, was commissioned by Henry the Seventh of England to sail on a voyage of discovery and conquest. Though the inception and authority for the expedition antedated the sailing of Columbus by a year, Cabot did not leave England until May, 1498. His landing on America was at or near the river St. Lawrence, from whence he sailed southward along the coast, landing only for observation, and making no attempt to form a settlement. It is doubtful if Cabot ever sailed as far south as Florida, though it is claimed that to him belongs the honor of its discovery. Fourteen years afterward, the first landing was made on the sandy shores of Florida, and possession claimed in the name of the King of Spain. The mystic fountain of youth, first pictured in the days of mythology, whose waters would stay the devastating march of time, endow perpetual youth, even restore vigor to the decrepitude of age, was said to exist in the New World. This fable, with which the European had become familiar from an Egyptian or Hellenic source, found confirmation in the traditions of the Indians of the Caribbean Islands. To the mind of the Spanish knight, eager to continue his youthful prowess and the enjoyment of the adjuncts of power and authority already achieved, the belief, thus strengthened by concurrence of a tradition in the New World, seemed an authentic reality, and the sufficient foundation for great labor and sacrifice. In this materialistic age we may laugh at the credulousness of the Spanish chevalier, whose faith in the story of an Indian girl led him to expend his wealth and sacrifice his life in such a chimerical search; yet the history of our own day will recount equal faith and as fruitless ventures.