ABSTRACT
Three strands of pre-Enlightenment thought grappled with the question of what lay on the southern side of the equator and what forms of life might be found there. In the Ptolemaic tradition, a “Fourth Continent” equivalent to the combined landmass of Europe, Asia, and Africa, was joined to the latter two; in medieval thought, the Antipodes were considered probably inaccessible, possibly non-existent, and either uninhabited or monstrously peopled; and Terra Australis Incognita, the fabled Great South Land of vast proportions and natural riches, made its first appearance on European maps in the fifteenth century. 1
