4. If a body should steer upon an oblique course (or any where betwixt the meridian and the East or West points) he’ll continually change both latitude and longitude, and that more or less, according to the course he steers; and if he should go quite round the globe, he’ll differ in his account of time, as by the second Corol.
5. The people residing in the Easternmost of any two places, will reckon their time so much the sooner than those who live in the other place, according to the difference of longitude betwixt the two places, allowing one hour for every 15 degrees, &c. and the contrary.
II. Of Zones and Climates, &c.
Zones, Torrid, Temperate, and Frigid.
4. Zones are large tracts of the surface of the Earth, distinguished by the tropics and polar circles, being five in number; viz. one Torrid, two Temperate and two Frigid.
The Torrid, or Burning Zone, is all the space comprehended between the two tropics; the ancients imagined this tract of the Earth to be uninhabitable, because of the excessive heat, it being so near the Sun. All the inhabitants of the torrid zone have the Sun in their zenith, or exactly over their heads twice in every year; excepting those who live exactly under the two tropics, where the Sun comes to their zenith only once in a year.
The two Temperate Zones lie on either side of the globe, between the tropics and the polar circles.
The two Frigid Zones are those spaces upon the globe that are included between the two polar circles.
Amphiscians.
Ascians.
The inhabitants of the Earth are also distinguished by the diversity of their Shadows. Those who live in the torrid zone, are called Amphiscians, because their noon-shadow is cast different ways, according as the Sun is to the northward or southward of their zenith; but when the Sun is in their zenith, they are called Ascians.