COMPENDIOSA.

The same, clearly, must be imagined in Heaven. For those two immovable points are the two Poles. One we call the Arctic or Northern, the other we call the Antarctic or Southern. The line that divides the entire Globe into two equal parts is named the Equator. The two lines that we draw on both sides, distant by an equal interval from the Equator, are named the Tropics. We shall explain the reason for this name elsewhere.

The interval, furthermore, comprehended within these two lines, in which the Sun so contains itself that it never departs, is accustomed to be called the Torrid Zone. The Sun, however, having been carried around the entire orb of the lands, traverses from east to west every day. Yet in its own motion—by which, indeed, it turns back, moving in a contrary direction to the primum mobile—it gradually refers itself from one Tropic to the other, so that it completes that space in the time of a year. Hence arise the seasons of the year and their four distinctions, about which we shall discuss shortly.

Now, that we may proceed to dividing and describing our Sphere, which is our design: we shall pursue the matter with such clarity that we are about to present the thing to the eyes themselves, even for one who has never heard anything about this matter.

Therefore, we must also draw two lines around the globe. One, indeed, in the other part of the globe between the Pole and the Tropic. Another, from

Vocabulary: Cosmography, Poles, Arctic, Antarctic, Equator, Tropics, Torrid Zone, Sun, Sphere