America: Being the Latest, and Most Accurate Description of the Nevv VVorld / Containing the Original of the Inhabitants, and the Remarkable Voyages Thither. The Conquest of the Vast Empires of Mexico and Peru, and Other Large Provinces and Territories, with the Several European Plantations in Those Parts. Also Their Cities, Fortresses, Towns, Temples, Mountains, and Rivers. Their Habits, Customs, Manners, and Religions. Their Plants, Beasts, Birds, and Serpents. With an Appendix, Containing, Besides Several Other Considerable Additions, a Brief Survey of What Hath Been Discover'd of the Unknown South-land and the Arctick Region.

by John Ogilby

Lactant. error concerning our Antipodes.

As also St. Austin. de Civit. Dei l. 16. c. 9.

But these seeming witty Observations of Lactantius, though they may serve for a Jest, yet are not grounded on any serious Reasons; for the Earth and Sea being Globular, making one Universal Ball; all Materials whatsoever that belong to this great Body, sink by a natural Propensity towards its Center; so that where-ever we Travel, our Feet are downwards, and our Heads upwards, the Sky above, and the Earth beneath; neither need they fear, that any where the Earth should Moulder and drop into the Clouds: But St. Austin Reasons better, admitting that the Earth and Sea make a Universal Globe; yet it no way follows, that inhabited Countreys should lye opposite to our Northern, nay, altogether impossible, seeing that side which is our Antipodes is all nothing but Sea; and should we allow, that there were Land and Water mixt as ours is, who could prove, that they were Peopled? or how could any get thither, over such Vast and Immense Seas? or possibly pass the extream heat of the Torrid Zone, not to be endur’d by any living Creature? And what then becomes of Sacred Scripture, which says positively, That all Men were deriv’d from Adam, and after the Floud, from Noah and his three Sons? Therefore the Nations of the Antipodes must be of another Abstract, there being no possibility (as they suppos’d) of passing from this World to that: But since the Discovery of the East and West-Indies, Experience, the best Mistress, hath taught, that in the South are mighty Lands and vast Territories, and that as far as they have been Penetrated, are found to be full of People, extending their Dominions from East to West. And though St. Austin deny’d this now well-known Truth, yet long before his time, Cicero, Pliny, and others amongst the Greeks and Romans, divided the Earth under five Zones; which Virgil describes thus:

Five Zones the heav’ns infold, hot Sun-beams beat Always on one, and burns with raging heat. The two Extreams to this on each hand lies Muffled with Storms, fetter’d with cruel Ice. ’Twixt Cold and Heat, two more there are, th’ aboads Assign’d poor Mortals by th’ Immortal Gods.

Quinque tenent cælum zonæ: quarum una corusco Semper Sole rubens, & torrida semper ab igni: Quam circum extremæ dextra, lævaque trahuntur Cærulea glacie concretæ, atque imbribus atris. Has inter, mediamque, duæ mortalibus ægris Munere concessæ divum: via secta per ambas, Obliquus qua se signorum verteret ordo.

Macrob. in Somnio Scipionis. l. 2. c. 5.

Vide Carpent. Geograph.

With Virgil, Pliny, and the Prince of Latin Orators agree, who saith, “You see, that those that inhabit the Earth dwell in Countreys so separated one from another, that it is impossible they should have any Commerce; some of them are our Antipodes, walking with their Heads downwards, some their Feet against our sides, others, as we, with their Heads upright. You see how the same Earth seems to be Swath’d about with Rolls, of which, two separated by the other three, are at utmost distance one from the other, lying equi-distant under the Vertick Points of Heaven, always cover’d with Snow and Ice; but the middlemost and greatest is scorch’d by the violent heats of the Sun: Two Tracts are Habitable, one to the South, our Antipodes, the other North, which we Inhabit.”

Pliny lib. 2.

And Pliny also affirms, though against the Vulgar Opinion, this truth, “That the Earth is round about inhabited, and that people walk Foot to Foot in most parts thereof; though every one be ready to ask why our Antipodes drop not into the Sky; which question, our Antipodes may also ask concerning us.”

But although the Ancients upon these and the like Demonstrations well understood, that there was a Habitable World towards the South under our Horizon, yet they could not make out or believe, that there was any possibility to pass thither; And, according as St. Austin conceiv’d, That the Earth produc’d nothing under either Pole, by reason of excessive cold, and that the Equinoxs or Middle-Zone, was not to be penetrated, because of the insufferable heat.