16 THE KING'S MIRROR 



Greenland: "for it is to be expected that severe cold 

 would come thence, since Greenland is ice-clad beyond 

 all other lands." * He conceives the possibility that the 

 south temperate zone is inhabited. "And if people live as 

 near the cold belt on the southern side as the Green- 

 landers do on the northern, I firmly believe that the 

 north wind blows as warm to them as the south wind 

 to us. For they must look north to see the midday and 

 the sun's whole course, just as we, who dwell north of 

 the sun, must look to the south." f 



On the questions of time and its divisions the author 

 of the King's Mirror seems to have had nearly all the 

 information that the age possessed. He divides the 

 period of day and night into two " days " (dcegr) of 

 twelve hours each. Each hour is again divided into 

 smaller hours called ostenta in Latin.} Any division 

 below the minute he apparently does not know. The 

 length of the year he fixes at 365 days and six hours, 

 every fourth year these additional hours make twenty- 

 four and we have leap year. The waxing and waning of 

 the moon and the tidal changes in the ocean are also 

 reckoned with fair accuracy. || 



Medieval scientists found these movements in the 

 ocean a great mystery. Some ascribed the tides to the 

 influence of the moon; If others believed that they were 

 caused by the collision of the waters of two arms of the 

 ocean, an eastern arm and a western; still others 



* C. xiii. f C. xxi. J C. vi. 



%lUd. \\Ibid. 



IT The Venerable Bede held that the moon is in some way responsible for the 



tides. De Natura Rerum, c. xxxix: Migne, Patrologia Latina, XC, 258-259; 



see also iW., XC, 422-426 (De Tempore Ratione, c. xxix). 



