ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL CONCEPTIONS 17 



the passages which tell of lands in the far South of India, 

 Patala and Taprobane, where shadows fall towards the 

 South ; and in a passage, which was to bear curious fruit, 

 he argues that "the Southern front of India in the region 

 of Pathalis and the neighbouring lands runs out towards the 

 Tropic of Capricorn " ; 1 a misinterpretation which ended, 

 as we shall see, in placing the name of Alexander's town of 

 Patala at the mouth of the Indus on a promontory of the 

 imagined continent of the South having its centre at the 



ALVEVS OCEAN 



vl f ^Wt^i T\T^r!SrC^ ! ^~*~*~ " "^ "*""* ^O 



CHART OF 1489. (From Rainaud, Le Continent Austral.) 



South Pole ! Misinterpreting Aristotle, as he had misinter- 

 preted Pliny, Bacon argues that this " place beyond the 

 Tropic of Capricorn " not only exists, but is also " of best 

 habitation, seeing that it is the higher part of the world, 

 and the more noble ; and hence the opinion of some 

 that Paradise is there." Albert the Great held that 

 " the fourth part of the earth " not only existed but was 

 also habitable. He met the theological objection by the 

 argument, in his time growing more and more convincing, 

 that, though to pass the Tropic Ocean is difficult, it is 



1 " Dico igitur quod frons Indiae meridianus pellitur ad tropicum 

 Capricornum propter regionem Pathalis et terrarum vicinarum " 

 (Opus Majus of Roger Bacon, ed. Bridges, vol. i. p. 309). 



W.A. B 



