WALDOBORO, wordo-biir-ii, Me., town, port of entry, Lincoln County, at the mouth of the Medomak River, and on the Maine Central Railroad, about 26 miles southeast of Augusta, and 12 miles west of Rockland. It was set tled in 1749 by a colony of Germans, and in 1773 was incorporated. It is in an agricultural section. The chief manufacturing establish ments are a shoe factory, machine shop, men's clothing factory and creameries. Formerly the town was 'noted for its shipbuilding. The principal public buildings are the United States custom-house, the churches, schools and the bank Pop. about 2,656.
WALDSERMeLLIIR, Martin, the scholar who gave America its name: b. at Freiburg, Germany, about 1480; d. about 1521. He was regarded as an able young geographer by the little group of learned men of his native heath. His (Cosmographix Introductio' and his map of the world (the latter prepared as a globe also: 'tam in solido quain plane), both pub lished at Saint Die in 1507, attracted much attention, and originated the name °America.* The name confidently proposed for the trans atlantic lands, and at the same time actually conferred upon the new c'quarta orbis pars,s in the little Latin treatise and on the huge wall map and globe, was so promptly and generally caught up that its originator himself was powerless to recall it. When he issued his 'Carta Marina,) in 1516, he had changed his opinion as to the relative value of the achieve ments of Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci, for the word America does not appear on the map of 1516. But it was too late to impose a name less significant and less appropriate. Of the Waldseemiiller map of 1507, 1,000 copies were printed, yet all but one were destroyed or lost, and the same fate had overtaken the Carta Itinararia Europm of 1511, and the Carta Marina of 1516. The Carta Itinararia was the , first to be recovered; the more interesting maps of 1507 and 1516 did not come to light until 1901, when their discovery created a sensation. In The Geographical fourna/ for February 1902 we read: ((Ever since Humboldt first called attention to the (Cosmopraphia Intro ductio) no lost maps have ever been sought for so diligently as those of Waldseemfiller. It is
not too much to say that the honor of being their lucky discoverer has long been considered as the highest possible prize to be obtained among snidents in the field of ancient cartog raphy. But until the last few months no specimen of either the globe or map has ever been seen or heard of in modem times. A few months ago the geographical world was suddenly startled by a brief announceinent that Waldseemiiller's long-lost map of 1507, to gether with another of his of 1516, had been found by Prof. P. Joseph Fischer of Feld kirch, in the library of Prince Waldburg at Wolfegg Castle.* In the excellent work by Fischer and Wieser (see below) it is written that ((Johann Schemer had the two Waldseemal ler maps bound in the form of an atlas. To this circumstance we owe the preservation of the two precious cartographic inonuments, while those copies that were mounted as wall ina.ps perished—as it seems, without exception —in consequence of their enormous size? The 'assertion, so commonly made, that Wald seemilller intended to bestow the name America upon the southern continent only, ap pears at first sight to find support in the map of 1507, but is disproved by a comparison of the map with the explanatory passages in the (Introductio.' The Greek form of his own name on the map of 1516 is Ilacomilus, show ing plainly his preference for that spelling toward the end of his rather short life. The fact that his name does not stand in any form upon the map of 1507 is additional evidence of juvenility. He appears to have been so young that his signature might have made good work seem less authoritative then. He was perhaps 25 years old when he produced a word that was to fill a place in all languages during all later ages. He was canon of Saint Die at his death, which was before 1522.
Bibliography.— Fischer and Wieser, (Die aleste Karte mit den3 Namen America); Humboldt, (Kritische lJntersuchungen'; d'Ave zac, (Martin Hylacomylus Waltzemiillee ; Har risse, ibli o th eca ' ; (Decouverte ; Fiske, John, (The Discovery of America) (Boston 1902) ; and the copy of the original (Cosmo graphim Introductio) in the New York Public Library.