and worthy kingdoms and cities
in that part of the earth, and the island of S. Thomas near Ethiopia, and
the wealthy islands for the which chiefly all these voyages are taken in
hand, to be inhabited even under the equinoctial line.

To answer the third objection, besides Cabot and all other travellers'
navigations, the only credit of Master Frobisher may suffice, who lately,
through all these islands of ice and mountains of snow, passed that way,
even beyond the gulf that tumbleth down from the north, and in some
places, though he drew one inch thick ice, as he returning in August did,
came home safely again.

The fourth argument is altogether frivolous and vain, for neither is
there any isthmus or strait of land between America and Asia, nor can
these two lands jointly be one continent. The first part of my answer is
manifestly allowed by Homer, whom that excellent geographer, Strabo,
followeth, yielding him in this faculty the prize. The author of that
book likewise _On the Universe_ to Alexander, attributed unto Aristotle,
is of the same opinion that Homer and Strabo be of, in two or three
places. Dionysius, in his _Periegesis_, hath this verse, "So doeth the
ocean sea run round about the world:" speaking only of Europe, Africa,
and Asia, as then Asia was travelled and known. With these doctors may
you join Pomponius Mela, Pliny, Pius, in his description of Asia. All
the which writers do no less confirm the whole eastern side of Asia to be
compassed about with the sea; then Plato doth affirm in is _Timaeus_,
under the name Atlantis, the West Indies to be an island, as in a special
discourse thereof R. Eden writeth, agreeable unto the sentence of
Proclus, Marsilius Ficinus, and others. Out of Plato it is gathered that
America is an island. Homer, Strabo, Aristotle, Dionysius, Mela, Pliny,
Pius, affirm the continent of Asia, Africa, and Europe, to be environed
with the ocean. I may therefore boldly say (though later intelligences
thereof had we none at all) that Asia and the West Indies be not tied
together by any isthmus or strait of land, contrary to the opinion of
some new cosmographers, by whom doubtfully this matter hath been brought
in controversy. And thus much for the first part of my answer unto the
fourth objection.

The second part, namely, that America and Asia cannot be one continent,
may thus be proved:--"The most rivers take down that way their course,
where the earth is most hollow and deep