Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 01.djvu/183

AMENHOTEP 141 AMERICANIZATION The second, called Nub-kan Ra, reigned in 2400 B. c. The third, called Maa-en -Ra, reigned in 2300 B. c. He built a great reservoir in the oasis of Fayum, connected with the Nile by a canal in order to regulate the flow of the water and improve its usefulness. He built also, beside the Lake Moeris, the great temple called the Labyrinth and pyra- mid of his tomb. The fourth, called Maatkhern Ra, reigned 2266 B. c. AMENHOTEP (am-en'ho-tep), or AMENOPHIS, the name of four Egyp- tian kings of the 18th dynasty. The first, Ser-ka Ra, reigned about 1666 B. c, and carried on successful wars in Ethiopia and Libya. The second, called Aa-khe- PERU Ra, reigned in 1566 B. c, and made a successful campaign in Asia. The third, the most famous, was the 9th of the 18th dynasty, known as MajVT-neb Ra, reigned about 1500 B. C. During his reign Egypt stretched from Mesopotamia to the country of Karo in Abyssinia. He also built along the banks of the Nile a series of marvelous monuments. The temple at Gebel-Barkal in the Sudan was erected by this King. He added con- siderably to the temple of Karnak and that part of the temple of Luxor which bears his name; also erected on the left bank of the Nile, opposite Luxor, a sa- cred edifice which once must have been one of the most important in Egypt, of which now only the enormous colossi are left, which are portrait statues of him- self. He was known to the Greeks as Am- mon. The fourth was known as Khun- ATEN and reigned in 1466 B. c, and made an innovation in religion by substituting the new worship of Aten (the sun's disk) for that of Amun and other Egyptian deities. He also moved the capital from Thebes to a place in the middle of Egypt, the modem Tel-el Amaxna. AMERICA, the grand land division oi the western hemisphere of the world, comprising North, Central, and South America, the West Indies and other adja- cent islands. Although the indigenous inhabitants of the greater part of America display no family connection with the other races of the earth, the Eskimos of the Arctic regions are un- questionably of Mongolian origin. By many it is believed that the earliest dis- covery of America was by the Chinese. According to a circumstantial Chinese narrative, the voyager Hwui-Shan, at the end of the 5th century A. D., sailed 32,000 li E. to the Fu-Sang country. Moreover, students of the ancient Mex- ican and Peruvian civilizations find in them evidences of the imitation of Chinese institufons and practices. The first European voyages to Ameri- can shores were made by the Northmen, who, in the middle of the 10th century, discovered and colonized Greenland, and (about 1001) visited the coasts of New England, where they established settle- ments. In 1492 Columbus discovered the West Indies, and in 1498 the mainland of South America; the first navigator to reach the North American mainland was Cabot (1497). The circumstances of the origin of the name America are highly interesting. Amerigo Vespucci, a navi- gator of Florence, undertook four voy- ages across the Atlantic— in 1497, 1499, 1501, and 1503. He described his ex- periences in a series of letters, addressed to his friend Soderini, gonfalonier of Florence, and to other gentlemen. These letters were translated by Martin Wald- seemiiller, a German schoolmaster and cosmographer at St. Die in Lorraine, and incorporated by him in a treatise, "Cos- mographiae Introductio," published in 1507. In his preface Waldseemiiller pro- posed that "this fourth part of the world" should be called, after its discov- erer, a man of sagacious mind, by the name of Amerige — that is to say, the land of Americus or America, since both Europe and Asia have obtained the name of women." The mature judgment of historical specialists acquits Vespucci of any collusion or participation in the nam- ing of America, and places the respon- sibility wholly upon the obscure Vosgian pedagogue. The two American conti- nents, with their N. and S. islands, have a length of about 8,280 geographical miles, covering 138 degrees of latitude. Their extreme E. and W. points are sep- arated by 131% degrees of longitude. The combined area is estimated at 16,- 000,000 square miles; the population at 200,000,000. AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LA- BOR. See Labor, American Federa- tion OF. AMERICAN INDIANS. See INDIANS, American. AMERICANIZATION. This term was brought into general use during the organization of "Americanization Day" celebrations in a number of cities for July 4, 1915. It properly refers to the "science of race assimilation" — the proc- ess of making an American people out of the vast army of immigrants who have come from every nation of the world to seek homes in the United States. The term has consequently been applied some- what indiscriminately to a wide variety of activities among the foreign born on the assumption that such programs con-