94 PLurr's nattteal histoet. [Book II. 



slaughter, and war, and that, while we drench her with our 

 blood, we cover her with unburied bones ; and being covered 

 with these and her anger being thus appeased, she conceals 

 the crimes of mortals ^ I consider the ignorance of her 

 nature as one of the evil effects of an ungrateful mind. 



CHAP. 64. (64.) — or the roEM of the eaeth. 



Every one agrees that it has the most perfect figure'. 

 "We- always speak of the ball of the earth, and we admit it 

 to be a globe bounded by the poles. It has not indeed the 

 form of an absolute sphere, from the number of lofty moun- 

 tains and flat plains ; but if the termination of the lines be 

 bounded by a curve^, this would compose a perfect sphere. 

 And this we learn from arguments drawn from the nature of 

 things, although not from the same considerations which wo 

 made use of with respect to the heavens. For in these the 

 hollow convexity everywhere bends on itself, and leans upon 

 the earth as its centre. Whereas the earth rises up solid 

 and dense, like something that swells up and is protruded 

 outwards. The heavens bend towards the centre, while the 

 earth goes from the centre, the continual rolling of the 

 heavens about it forcing its immense globe into the form of 

 a sphere*. 



chap. 65. (65.) — whethee theee be ai^tipodes ? 

 On this point there is a great contest between the learned 



* " ossa vel insepulta cum tempore tellus occultat, deprimentia poudere 

 Buo mollitam pluviis humum." Alexandre, in Lemaire, i. 370. 



2 *' figura prima." I may refer to the second chapter of this book, 

 "where the author remarked upon the form of the earth as perfect in all 

 its parts, and especially adapted for its supposed position in the centre of 

 the universe. 



3 •' si capita linearum comprehendantur ambitu ;" the meaning 



of this passage would appear to be : if the extremities of the lines drawn 

 from the centre of the earth to the different parts of the surface were con- 

 nected together, the result of the whole would be a sphere. I must, how- 

 ever, remark, that Hardouin interprets it in a somewhat different manner ; 

 **Si per extremitates linearum ductarum a centro ad summos quosque 

 yertices montium circulus exigatur." Lemaire, i. 370. 



* " immensum ejus globum in formam orbis assidua circa earn 



mundi volubiUtate cogente." As Hardouin remarks, the word mundus 

 is here used in the sense of caelum. Lemaire, i. 371. 



