Chapter 44. About how the earth is connected with the waters

The Creator has girded the globe with water in the very middle, and the water from everywhere runs down to the center and cannot fall, since there is always earth under it; and just as hard and dry earth could not remain a single whole, but would crumble without moisture, so water in its turn could not maintain its equilibrium by itself if it were not supported by the earth; In this way they mutually encompass each other: the earth exposes its breast to the water, and it runs all over it inside, without, above, below, enveloping it in streams like fetters, and sometimes bursting out even on the tops of the highest mountains.

Chapter 45. Land Location

The foundation of the earth is its own stability, and the abyss envelops it like a cloak. For just as the place of fire can be nowhere but in fire, and the place of water is only in water, and the place of spirit is in spirit, so there can be no other place for the earth, all parts of which cling to each other, but in itself: nature herself keeps it there and does not allow it to fall anywhere. Being located in the center or on the axis of the world, the earth, the heaviest [of the elements], occupies the lowest and middle place among all creations, while water, air, and fire rush higher as by their natural lightness. and according to the regulations [26]. [151]

Chapter 46. That the earth is like a sphere

When we say that the earth is round, this does not mean that its shape is absolutely round, for it is the alternation of mountains and plains that makes it irregular; But if we encircle the earth [in any direction] by connecting [mentally] with lines all [points of equal height], we get the figure of an absolute circle. That is why we always see the constellations of the northern hemisphere, and never the southern hemisphere; and on the contrary, our constellations are not visible to others, because the globe interferes, Troglodyte and his neighbor the Egyptian never see the Seven Stars, but Italy does not know Canopus; however, the inhabited part of this globe extends from east to west almost twice as far as from south to north: the heat does not allow the first to come close, and the frost to the second.

Chapter 47. About the belts of the earth

The earth is divided into eight belts according to the change [length] of the day. The first belt stretches from the southern part of India to the inhabited Red Sea, and then along the coast of Africa to the Pillars of Hercules [28]. At the equinox at noon, an eight-foot gnomon casts a shadow 4 feet long. The longest day there lasts 14 hours. The second belt runs from western India through Media [29], then through Persia, Arabia, Syria, Cyprus, Crete, Lilybaeum [30], touching northern Africa. At the equinox, the 35-foot hand of the sundial casts a shadow 23 feet long. The longest day here is 14.2 hours. The third belt begins in India near Imaus, stretches through the Caspian Gates, the Taurus, Pamphylia, Rhodes, the Cyclades, Syracuse, Catina, and the Hada Islands, the longest day there is 14.5 hours and the thirtieth part of an hour. The fourth belt stretches from the other slope of the Imaian [mountains] through Ephesus, the Cycladic Sea, northern Sicily, the eastern part of Narbonensian Gaul, and the coast of Africa to the west. A gnomon of 21 feet corresponds to a 16-foot shadow here. The longest day is 14 hours and two-thirds. The fifth belt includes, from the beginning of the Caspian Sea, Bactria, Armenia, Macedonia, Tarentum, the Tuscan Sea,[37] the Balearic Islands, and Central Spain. A seven-foot gnomon here casts a 6-foot shadow. The longest day is 15 hours, and the Sixth Belt covers the peoples of the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus, Samothrace, Illyria, Campania, Etruria,[152] Massilia,[39] Middle Terracona[40] in Spain, and then Lusitania[41]. Gnomon is 9 feet, shadow is 8 feet. The longest day is 15 and 1/9 hours. The seventh belt begins on the other side of the Caspian Sea, runs along the opposite side of Thrace, then through Venice, Cremona, Ravenna, Transalpine Gaul, the Pyrenees, and Celtiberia. A 35-foot gnomon has a shadow of 34 feet. The longest day is 15 and 2/3 hours. The eighth goes from Tanais[43] through Lake Maeotis,[44] then through Sarmatia, Dacia, and part of Germany, reaching Gaul. The longest day here is 16 hours, Besides these belts the ancients mention two more at the very beginning: the first, passing through the island of Meroe [45] and the city of Ptolemais by the Red Sea: the longest day there is 12.5 hours; the second [passes] through Siena in Egypt, there is a 13-hour day. At the end, too, they added two more: the first, through the Hyperboreans and Britain, where the longest day is 17 hours; the second through Scythia, from the Ural Mountains to Thule, where the [longest day of the year] and the [longest] night stretch equally [for a whole day].

Chapter 48. More about gnomonics

The shadow of the sundial hand, which is called the gnomon, in Egypt at noon during the equinox period is slightly more than half the length of the gnomon. In the city of Rome, the shadow is smaller than the gnomon by one-ninth of it. In the city of Ancona, it is one 35th more. In that part of Italy which is called Venice, at the same hours the shadow is equal to the gnomon. And five thousand miles above Alexandria, the same gnomon at noon at the solstice casts no shadow at all. In India, above the river Hypasis, and among the Troglodytes, the shadow is cast to the south for 90 days in the year: 45 days before the solstice and the same number of days after it. And on the Nile island of Meroe, five thousand stadia from Siena, the shadows disappear twice a year, when the sun is in the eighteenth part of Taurus and in the fourteenth part of Leo.

Chapter 49. About the earthquake

Earthquakes are said to be due to the wind enclosed in the vessel, like a sponge; The wind rushes there with a terrifying noise, and trying to break out, it shakes it from time to time with a crash, until at last it spews it out, shuddering and splitting. Porous lands are more prone to earthquakes precisely because they contain wind; on the contrary, sandy and stony lands do not know earthquakes. Earthquakes occur only when the sky is calm and the sea is calm, when the wind is hidden in the veins of the earth. The shaking of the earth is like thunder in a cloud, and cracks are the same as lightning. Floods sometimes occur simultaneously with an earthquake; they are evidently caused either by the same wind or by the subsidence of the earth.

Translation from Latin and commentary by T. Y. Borodai