-- 20 --
that if the depth of the earth were infinite, note such a revolution
could not take place.
Every information respecting the climata note is contained in
the Treatises on Positions. note
21
Now there are some facts which we take to be established, viz. those with which every politician and general
should be familiar. For on no account should they be so
uninformed as to the heavens and the position of the earth, note
that when they are in strange countries, where some of the
heavenly phenomena wear a different aspect to what they
have been accustomed, they should be in a consternation, and
exclaim,
Neither west
Know we, nor east, where rises or where sets
The all-enlightening sun. note
Odyssey x. 190.
Still, we do not expect that they should be such thorough
masters of the subject as to know what stars rise and set
together for the different quarters of the earth; those which
have the same meridian line, the elevation of the poles, the
signs which are in the zenith, with all the various phenomena
which differ as well in appearance as reality with the variations of the horizon and arctic circle. With some of these
matters, unless as philosophical pursuits, they should not burden themselves at all; others they must take for granted without searching into their causes. This must be left to the care
of the philosopher; the statesman can have no leisure, or very
little, for such pursuits. Those who, through carelessness and
ignorance, are not familiar with the globe and the circles
traced upon it, some parallel to each other, some at right
angles to the former, others, again, in an oblique direction;
nor yet with the position of the tropics, equator, and zodiac,
(that circle through which the sun travels in his course, and
by which we reckon the changes of season and the winds,)
such persons we caution against the perusal of our work. For
