Book on the Universe

Asia is divided from Chamesia by the Red Sea and a line drawn from it to the Mediterranean Sea. From Japhetia, however, it is divided partly by the Mediterranean Sea to the Aegean, the Hellespont, the Bosporus, the Euxine Sea, and the Maeotis, and to the marsh crossed at the straits of the Cimmerian Bosporus, and partly by the Tanais river and the Dvina, or a line drawn from the Maeotis to the northern sea. The Mediterranean Sea is admitted between Japhetia and Chamesia through the Strait of Gibraltar, where the Mediterranean sea emits those waters which it receives from the Pontus via the Danube, Borysthenes, and Tanais, and from the Nile, Bagrada, Po, Rhone, and Ebro, the great rivers. Formerly this sea covered a part of Numidia, Egypt, Asia Minor, Scythia, Thessaly, and Cisalpine Gaul belonging to the Venetian region. It has many bays, but the more famous ones toward Japhetia are to Gaul, the Adriatic, Ionia, Attica, Thessaly, the Propontis, the Pontus, and the Maeotis marsh; thence again to the Pontus, and crossing Asia to the Issic Gulf and Syria. Thence near Chamesia to the Syrtes. Asia admits three seas within itself: the Arabic, which I called the Red Sea; the Persian; and the Caspian, which lacks an open exit and is formed from the greatest rivers, the Rha, Oxus, Jaxartes, and the like. Besides those, it has three lakes in Media, of which one is most salty and abounds in round salt at the bottom, three days from the city of Tauris. Thus the earth is washed on all sides by the sea. The new world extends from the 50th degree in latitude toward the south as far as our pole, and is surrounded on all sides by the sea, having in the east the Fortunate Islands, which they call today Isabella and Hispaniola, along with many others. Thus is the globe of the earth divided.