Northwesterne straight lyeth neere the 318. Meridian, betweene 61. and 64.
degrees in the eleuation, continuing the same bredth about 10 degrees West,
where it openeth Southerly more and more, vntill it come vnder the tropicke
of Cancer, and so runneth into Mar del Zur, at the least 18 degrees more in
bredth there, then it was where it first began: otherwise I could as well
imagine this passage to be more vnlikely then the voyage to Moscouia, and
more impossible then it for the farre situation and continuance thereof in
the frostie clime: as now I can affirme it to be very possible and most
likely in comparison thereof, for that it neither coasteth so farre North
as the Moscouian passage doeth, neither is this straight so long as that,
before it bow downe Southerly towardes the Sunne againe.

[Sidenote: Sol. 2.] The second argument concludeth nothing. Ptolome knew
not what was aboue sixteene degrees South beyond the Equinoctiall line, he
was ignorant of all passages Northward from the eleuation of 63. degrees:
he knewe no Ocean sea beyond Asia, yet haue the Portugals trended the Cape
of Good hope at the South point of Afrike, and trauelled to Iapan an Island
in the East Ocean, betweene Asia and America: our merchants in the time of
king Edward the sixt discouered the Moscouian passage farther North than
Thyle, and shewed Groenland not to be continent with Lappeland and Norway:
the like our Northwesterne trauellers haue done, declaring by their
nauigation that way, the ignorance of all Cosmographers that either doe
ioyne Groenland with America, or continue the West Indies with that frosty
region vnder the north pole. As for Virgil he sang according to the
knowledge of men in his time, as an other poet did of the hot Zone.

[Sidenote: Ouid. 1. Meta.] Quarum quæ media est, non est habitabilis æstu.
Imagining, as most men then did, Zonam torridam, the hot Zone to be
altogether dishabited for heat, though presently wee know many famous and
worthy kingdomes and cities in that part of the earth, and the Island of S.