[279] See Zurla, Il Mappemonde di Fra Mauro, Venezia, 1806, p. 62; Humboldt's Kritische Untersuchungen, i, p. 274; Ongania and Santarem's Reproductions of the Map itself; Nordenskjöld's Periplus, 127-8.
[280] Egg of the Rukh, or Roc?
[281] Cp. also the elliptical Florentine example of 1447 (Nordenskjöld, Facsimile Atlas, 116), or Leardus' Mappemondes of 1448 and 1452 (ibid. 61).
[282] "Sinus Ethiopicus:" very similar to that depicted on the Leardus of 1448. On the southern side of this is "Fundan."
[283] Perhaps a Ptolemaic concession.
[284] Still more is this the case with Asia, where Fra Mauro is in some ways more satisfactory than anywhere else, and contrasts well even with the "Harleian" or Dieppe Map of c. 1536, and many other similar works.
[285] Azurara, ch. ix.
[286] Cf. Neckam's references. (α) In his work, De Utensilibus: "Qui ergo munitam vult habere navem . . . habeat etiam acum jaculo superpositam: rotabitur enim et circumvolvetur, donec cuspis acus respiciat Septentrionem, sicque comprehendent quo tendere debeant nautae, cum Cynosura latet in aeris turbatione, quamvis ea occasum nunquam teneat propter circuli brevitatem." (β) In his De Naturis Rerum, c. 98: "Nautae ... mare legentes, cum beneficium claritatis solis in tempore nubilo non sentiunt, aut ... cum caligine ... tenebrarum mundus obvolvitur, acum super magnetem ponunt, quae circulariter circumvolvitur usque dum ejus motu cessante, cuspis ipsius Septentrionalem Plagam respiciat."
[287] "La tresmontaine."
[288] "Acus ferrea, postquam adamantem contigerit, ad stellam septentrionalem ... semper convertitur; unde valde necessarium est navigantibus in mari."