Wherfore the opinion of Dominicus
Maria of Ferrara, a most talented man, who was the teacher of Nicolas
Copernicus, must be cancelled; a view {213} which, according to certain
observations of his own, is as follows.[241] "I," he says, "in former years
while studying Ptolemy's _Geographia_ discovered that the elevations of the
North pole placed by him in the several regions, fall short of what they
are in our time by one degree and ten minutes: which divergence can by no
means be ascribed to an error of the tables: For it is not credible that
the whole series in the book is equally wrong in the figures of the tables:
Hence it is necessary to allow that the North pole has been tilted toward
the vertical point. Accordingly a lengthy observation has already begun to
disclose to us things hidden from our forefathers; not indeed through any
sloth of theirs, but because they lacked the prolonged observation of their
predecessors: For before Ptolemy very few places were observed with regard
to the elevations of the pole, as he himself also bears witness at the
beginning of his _Cosmographia_: (For, says he) Hipparchus alone hath
handed down to us the latitudes of a few places, but a good many have noted
those of distances; especially those which lie toward sunrise or sunset
were received by some general tradition, not owing to any sloth on the part
of authors themselves, but to the fact that there was as yet no practice of
more exact mathematicks. 'Tis accordingly no wonder, if our predecessors
did not mark this very slow motion: For in one thousand and seventy years
it shows itself to be displaced scarce one degree toward the apex of
dwellers upon the earth. The strait of Gibraltar shows this, where in
Ptolemy's time the North pole appears elevated 36 degrees and a quarter
from the Horizon: whereas now it is 37 and two-fifths. The like divergence
is also shown at Leucopetra in Calabria, and at particular spots in Italy,
namely those which have not changed from Ptolemy's time to our own. And so
by reason of this movement, places now inhabited will some day become
deserted, while those regions which are now parched at the torrid zone
will, though long hence, be reduced to our temper of climate. Thus, as in a
course of three hundred and ninety five thousands of years, is that very
slow movement completed." Thus, according to these observations of
Dominicus Maria, the North pole is at a higher elevation, and the latitudes
of places