Book on the Universe

the globe of the Earth is divided in a fourfold manner into ninety-four degrees extending everywhere in a straight sphere by means of the boundary placed at the meridian of the Moluccas, and at the end of the earth where Ptolemy placed the first meridian, otherwise the same division is made from the vertical circle and from the Horizon. But the globe is not usually divided in this way.

Division of the Earth.

They formerly divided the globe of the earth into Asia, Africa, and Europe, but because it was first inhabited by the three sons of Noah after the universal flood, in such a way that Asia was for the greatest part Sem’s, Africa Cham’s or Chames’s, and Europe Japheth’s, it is better to call Asia Samia, Africa Chamia or Chamesia, and Europe Japhetia, unless we wish to preserve the name of Asia because it was imposed by Asia, the wife of Japheth. To which Japheth was granted the right of the whole, when Cham was constituted his servant and the one acquiring for him, and besides his own right, he was ordered to live in the tents of Sem, Europe being left for him. Besides these three parts, there remains among the Antipodes a new world, which is the Atlantis mentioned by Plato, but called by another name of Japheth. For Japheth was called Atalus and Atlas by the variable use of vowels, whence also he imposed a name on the western part of Africa and the whole Atlantic sea, who is believed there, because of the science of the stars, to have sustained the heaven, and because of the doctrine by which he formed the universe, he was called the author of the human race by himself and by his son Prometheus (who is also Gomerus Gallus)...