t the
northern pole being more compacted, blow violently following the sun
when it returns from the summer solstice.

CHAPTER VIII. OF WINTER AND SUMMER.

Empedocles and the Stoics believe that winter is caused by the thickness
of the air prevailing and mounting upwards; and summer by fire, it
falling downwards.

This description being given by me of Meteors, or those things that are
above us, I must pass to those things which are terrestrial.

CHAPTER IX. OF THE EARTH, WHAT IS ITS NATURE AND MAGNITUDE.

Thales and his followers say that there is but one earth. Hicetes the
Pythagorean, that there are two earths, this and the Antichthon, or
the earth opposite to it. The Stoics, that this earth is one, and that
finite and limited. Xenophanes, that the earth, being compacted of
fire and air, in its lowest parts hath laid a foundation in an infinite
depth. Metrodorus, that the earth is mere sediment and dregs of water,
as the sun is of the air.

CHAPTER X. OF THE FIGURE OF THE EARTH.

Thales, the Stoics, and their followers say that the earth is globular.
Anaximander, that it resembles a smooth stony pillar. Anaximenes, that
it hath the shape of a table. Leucippus, of a drum. Democritus, that it
is like a quoit externally, and hollow in the middle.

CHAPTER XI. OF THE SITE AND POSITION OF THE EARTH.

The disciples of Thales say that the earth is the centre of the
universe. Xenophanes, that it is first, being rooted in the infinite
space. Philolaus the Pythagorean gives to fire the middle place,
and this is the source fire of the universe; the second place to the
Antichthon; the third to that earth which we inhabit, which is placed
in opposition unto and whirled about the opposite,--which is the reason
that those which inhabit that earth cannot be seen by us. Parmenides was
the first that confined the habitable world to the two solstitial (or
temperate) zones.

CHAPTER XII. OF THE INCLINATION OF THE EARTH.

Leucippus affirms that the earth vergeth towards the southern parts, by
reason of the thinness and fineness that is in the south; the northern
parts are more compacted, they being congealed by a rigorous cold, but
those parts of the world that are opposite are enfired. Democritus,
because, the southern parts of the air being the weaker, the earth as it
enlarges bends towards the south; the northern parts are of an unequal,
the southern of an equal temperament; and this is the reason that t