BOOK II.] History of Nature. 1 1 1 



call Zones 1 : all that lieth under the two utmost, on both 

 Sides about the Poles, namely, the one which is called Sep- 

 tentrio, or the North, and the other over against it, named 

 the South, is overcharged with extreme Cold and perpetual 

 Frost. In both Zones it is always dim, and because the 

 Aspect of the milder Planets is diverted from thence, the 

 Light that is, sheweth but little, and appeareth white with the 

 Frost only. But the Middle of the Earth, in which the Sun 

 keepeth his Course, scorched and burnt with Flames, is pre- 

 sently parched with its hot Gleams 2 . Those two only on 

 either Side, between this burnt Zone and the two frozen, are 

 Temperate : and even those have not a Passage one to the 



1 The poetical account of Ovid, in his " Metamorphoses," expresses 

 the belief of the ancients in this division. Wern, Club. 



2 Whatever acquaintance with the remote regions of the earth the 

 Phoenicians and Carthaginians might have acquired, was concealed from 

 the rest of mankind with mercantile jealousy ; and every thing relative 

 to the course of their navigation was not only a mystery of trade, but a 

 secret of state. Hence the ignorance of geography manifested by Pliny 

 and other writers, long after these celebrated voyagers had effected the 

 circumnavigation of Africa. Polybius, whose history was written about 

 150 years B. c., and who was particularly distinguished by his attention 

 to geographical researches, affirms that it was not known, in his time, 

 whether Africa was a continued continent stretching to the south, or 

 whether it was encompassed by the sea. Strabo mentions, indeed, the 

 voyage of Eudoxus, but treats it as a fabulous tale : and Ptolemy, the 

 most inquisitive and learned of all the ancient geographers, was equally 

 unacquainted with any parts of Africa situated a few degrees beyond the 

 Equinoctial Line ; for he supposes that this great continent was not 

 surrounded by the sea, but that it stretched, without interruption, to- 

 wards the South Pole ; and he so far mistakes its true figure, that he 

 describes it as becoming broader and broader as it advances towards the 

 South. 



The notion of the ancients concerning such an excessive degree of heat 

 in the Torrid Zone as rendered it uninhabitable, and their persisting in 

 this error long after they began to have some commercial intercourse with 

 several parts of India lying within the Tropics, is very extraordinary. 

 Pliny, in this chapter, falls in with both these errors : and Cicero (" Som- 

 nium Scipionis") holds the same opinion, and other authorities might be 

 adduced. See the Notes to Robertson's " History of America," where he 

 attempts to account for the apparent inconsistency of the ancients with 

 respect to their theory and experience. Wern. Club. 



