Mary Ellin-
 
     Welcome to Vespucciland (yes, I am old enough to remember
Firesign Theater).
 
     Daniel J. Boorstin is my "authority" on just about everything
world-historical.  In The Discoverers (1983), Boorstin outlines
Vespucci's voyages to the Americas and elsewhere, and notes that he
traveled the southern part of the South American continent.  Vespucci
contributed to the solution of reckoning longitude, and the accounts
of his voyages received much greater press than those of Columbus.  As
to the naming of the "Americas,"  Vespucci had nothing to do with
that.  Boorstin explains that an "obscure clergyman" named Martin
Waldseemuller, while a member of a learned society in Northern France,
had the South American continent inscribed "America" on a 1507 map
published by the society.  This map was widely distributed and
reprinted, and by the time Waldseemuller discovered that he had
attributed the discovery of the Americas to the wrong person, the name
had taken hold.
 
     I hope this helps out.  Check out Boorstin; he really is
entertaining.
 
Richard Kimmel