then is flat : an oblong flat, for was not the table of show- 

 bread twice as long as it was broad ? At the Northern 

 end is a high mountain, round which goes the sun a sun 

 of forty miles radius, and four hundred miles away 

 so that when the sun is behind the mountain it is night, 

 and when it appears again it is day. Round this flat 

 oblong earth flows the ocean the ocean on which Cosmas 

 had himself sailed when he travelled to India. And round 

 this Ocean, again, is an outer frame of land, in the Eastern 

 side of which is the Garden of Eden, whence the Four 

 great rivers, the Nile, the Ganges, the Tigris and the 

 Euphrates, flow from their common source by the 

 Tree of Life, " cleaving a passage through the Ocean, 

 and springing up in this earth." On this same outer 

 earth had dwelt the Patriarchs in the days before the 

 flood, when Noah, sailing over the Ocean sea in his Ark, 

 " reached our part of the earth, and settled in Persian 

 territory." To the outside edge of this outer earth, God 

 had " glued " the four " walls " or " curtains " of the 

 " heavens," welding heaven and earth together, as Job 

 says, " as a square block of stone." " On high he formed 

 it into a most lofty vault overspanning the length of 

 the earth " ; and then, " having enclosed the space, made 

 a house, as one might call it, of enormous size, like an 

 oblong vaulted vapour bath." And, finally, by the inser- 

 tion of the " Firmament," this house had been made The world 

 into two houses, or rather a house with " an upper sieved 

 and a lower storey " ; the lower storey for man, the upper house, 

 for God, the angels and the saints. 1 



Such was the geography taught by that Divine Wisdom 

 which was independent of human intelligence. How 

 different from the " inventions of the Greeks," and how 

 much more in accordance with commonsense ! If the The 

 earth is, as' they say, not founded on its own stability, an d the 



but revolves on its axis, pray what is that axis made of ? sinfulness of 



belief in. 

 And again why do not we hear it whizz ? And what supports Antipodeans. 



1 " One of the huge receptacles in which female travellers of our day 

 carry their dresses, forms a perfect model of the Kosmos of Kosmas " 

 (Yule). See map, p. n. 



