442 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION E. 



6.— THE INFLUENCE OF SPANISH AND PORTU- 

 GUESE DISCOVERIES DURING THE FIRST 

 TWENTY YEARS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 

 ON THE THEORY OF AN ANTIPODAL SOUTHERN 

 CONTINENT. 



By JAMES R. M'CLYMONT, M.A. 



The possibility of an antipodal continent follows from the 

 sphericity of the earth, which has been generally admitted 

 by geographers since the time of Aristotle. The older theory 

 of the Hellenic Greeks regarded the earth as a disc sur- 

 rounded by Ocean and floating in the midst of the heavens. 

 All the seas had outlets into the ocean. In the east the 

 river Phasis united the Euxine with the ocean, in the west 

 the strait of the Columns of Hercules similarly connected 

 the Mediterranean with it. The diameter of the earth was 

 of twenty days' journey. The true successors of this 

 Homeric school were the monastic illuminators of the middle 

 ages. Their Imagines Mundi represent the earth as a 

 wheel, the tire of which is the Homeric Ocean. It has three 

 spokes, one of which is placed perpendicularly to the other 

 two ; the horizontal spokes represent the waters which 

 were supposed to divide Europe and Africa from Asia, 

 namely, the Tanais or River Don, the Black Sea, the 

 Hellespont, the easternmost portion of the Mediterranean, 

 and the Nile ; the perpendicular spoke represents the 

 remaining portion of the Mediterranean dividing Europe 

 from Africa. The east, as the realm of Paradise, is placed 

 at the summit of the wheel ; Jerusalem is the nave, for 

 " operatus es salutem in medio terrae " (Ps. 74, 12). The 

 antipodal continent finds no place in the typical Imago 

 Mundi, or, if alluded to at all, it is only to dismiss it 

 as a fable : " Extra tres autem partes orbis pars trans 

 oceanum ulterior est qui solis ardore incognita nobis est cuius 

 finibus antipodes fabuloso inhabitare produntur." {Orhis e 

 codice taurinensi. Mappemonde dans un MS. qui contient un 

 commentaire de I' Apocalypse.) Atlas de Santarem. 



The first terrestrial globe, so far as we know, was con- 

 structed about 150 B.C. by Crates of Mallus. Crates 

 divided the globe into four land segments, one of which 

 represented all of the earth known to the ancients. The 

 other three were conjectural. They were divided in one 

 direction by au equatorial ocean, in the other by an ocean 



