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

ABOUT COUNTING TIMES

DE TEMPORUM RATIONE

LXVI. Of the Six Ages of the World.

Of the six ages of the world, as well as of the seventh and eighth ages of rest and heavenly life, we shall speak rather briefly in comparison with the first week in which the world was organized, but we shall speak of them in much greater detail in comparison with the age of the individual man, which is commonly called by the Greek philosophers the microcosm, that is, the lesser world.

So the first age of this world is the period from Adam to Noah; it is 1656 years, according to the true tradition of the Jews, or 2242 years, according to 70 interpreters, and contains, according to both traditions, 10 generations; it has completely disappeared as a result of the flood, just as the infancy of every man is usually sunk into oblivion, for who remembers his infancy?

The second century, from Noah to Abraham, embraces, according to the true tradition of the Jews, 10 generations and 292 years, or, according to 70 interpreters, 11 generations and 272 years. It was a kind of childhood of the human race, which was reflected in the language, that is, in the language of the Jews. After all, it is from childhood that a person begins to speak, after infancy, which was so called because he could not yet "fari", that is, speak.

The third, from Abraham to David, embraces, according to both traditions, 14 generations and 942 years. It was, as it were, the youth of the people of God, and since from this age man acquires the ability to produce, the Evangelist Matthew also counts the generations from Abraham, who also became the father of the nations, after receiving the changed name.