240 NOVUM OKGANUM. 



ascendentes ad verticem Picus de Tenariph eo vadunt noctu et 

 non interdiu ; et paulo post ortum soils monentur et excitantur 

 a ducibus suis ut festinent descendere, propter periculum (ut 

 videtur) a tenuitute aeris, ne solvat spiritus et suffocet. 1 



Ad 2am 3a. Reflexio radiorum solis, in regionibus prope circulos 

 polares, admodum debilis et inefficax invenitur in calore : adeo 

 utBelgae, qui hybernarunt in Nova Zembla 2 , cum expectarent 

 navis suae liberationem et deobstructionem a glaciali mole (quas 

 earn obsederat) per initia mensis Julii spe sua frustrati sint, et 

 coacti scaphae se committere. Itaque radii soils direct! videntur 

 parum posse, etiam super terrain planam; nee reflexi etiam, 

 nisi multiplicentur et uniantur ; quod fit cum sol magis vergit 

 ad perpendiculum ; quia turn incidentia radiorum facit angulos 

 acutiores, ut lineae radiorum sint magis in propinquo : ubi con- 

 tral in-magnis-obliquitatibusHSolislanguli sint valde obtusi, et 



proinde lineae radiorum magis distantes. Sed interim notandum 

 rr i ^f t*t.pE^ < faon- . 



> ~ est, multas esse posse operationes radiorum sons, atque etiam 



ex na ^ ura Calidi, quae non sunt proportionatae ad tactum nostrum : 

 adeo ut respectu nostri non operentur usque ad calefactionem, 

 sed respectu aliorum nonnullorum corporum exequantur opera 



logics of Aristotle, where he has given in extenso the passage in which Geminus 

 speaks in the same manner of Mount Cyllene in Arcadia, and also a similar statement 

 made by Philoponus with respect to Olympus. The whole class of stories seem (as 

 Ideler following Lobeck remarks) to have somewhat of a mythical character. G. Bruno 

 apparently confounded Philoponus with Alexander Aphrodisiensis, when in the Cena di 

 Cenere he asserted that the latter mentions the sacrifices on the top of Olympus. Jn 

 the passage on the subject in which we might expect to find him doing so, namely in 

 his Commentary on the Meteorologies, i. c. 3., he does not specify any particular 

 mountain. 



That there is no wind nor rain on Olympus is mentioned as a common opinion 

 by St. Augustin, De Civ. Dei, xvi. 27. Compare Dante, Purg. xxviii. 112. 



1 Lest the animal spirits should swoon and be suffocated by the tenuity of the air. 



2 This of course refers to Barentz's expedition in search of a North-East passage. He 

 passed the winter 1596-7 at Nova Zembla. [In Barentz's first voyage, 1594, he 

 was stopped by the ice on the 13th of July, and obliged to return. In his third voy- 

 age, 1596, his first considerable check was on the 19th of July ; after which he only 

 succeeded in coasting round the northern point of Nova Zembla till the 26th of 

 August, where the ship stuck fast and they were forced to leave her and winter on the 

 island, and return in their boats in the beginning of June 1597. See the letter signed 

 by the company : " Three Voyages by the North-East, &c.," Hackluyt Society, 1853, 

 p. 191. This letter was begun on the 1st of June: " Having till this day stayed for 

 the time and opportunity in hope to get our ship loose, and now are clean out of hope 

 thereof, for that it lieth shut up and enclosed in the ice," &c. : and ended on the 13th, 

 " notwithstanding that while we were making ready to be gone, we had great wind 

 out of the west and north-west, and yet find no alteration nor bettering in the weather, 

 and therefore in the last extremity we left it." This narrative, written by Gerrit de 

 Veer, one of the party, was first published in Dutch in 1598 ; translated into Latin and 

 French the same year; into Italian in 1599; into English in 1609. See Introduction, 

 p. cxviii. " Per initia mensis Junii" would have been more accurate. J. S."] 



