ABSTRACT
Hut as we said by anticipation in thc second book, there lie between Meroe and the Ocean in the south many of the
earth, of course the length of the sbadows would be different for different latitudes, supposing the earth to be flat. This is shown in diagram 3. It is on theassumption of a near SUD t.bat the fallacy of
COS.\JAS INDICOPLEUSTES.-BOOK VI. 249
stages into which the earth is partitioned. For, from the Cataracts to the ocean we remember having stated that the number of halting-places in that distance \vas seventy more or ]ess. But the number of climates which they suppose to exist they reckon at somewhere about twenty only.l So then quite clearly the shadow in the climate ofAxome, a city of the Ethiopians, is found projecting more than a foot to the south, so that everything goes to show that, if the sun in his passage through the summer tropic be between Syene and Axomis, he has the size of two climates.2 Is it not then false and fabulous wh at they say about the sun, that he is greater than the earth? And how too comes it, if, as they say, the earth is spherical, the shadow does not vary on the convex surface of the earth? F or since they place the torrid zone in the centre, it follows of necessity that the parts on each side of that zone must be depressed. And they assert that none can inhabit the torrid zone-yea, even that the northern part of the world which is inhabited by us is many stages distant from the torrid zone. And I wonder again if, in those convcx parts of the earth which they suppose to exist, the shadows are able to observe such a proportion that they increase or diminish by half a foot for each climate, as with God's help we have demonstrated and with our very eyes have \\'itnessed to be the case, and have shown to the men with whom we have conversed -men by no means novices but adepts in science,
250 CIlRISTIAN TOPOGRAPH\" OF
and earnest]y maintaining this opinion. But further again 266 they affirmed most positively that whcn thc illuminating
body is large and the body which is illuminatcd smalI, and each of them spherical, the shadow produccd is beyond question conical-for the rays of the larger sphere, passing beyond the smaller on this and on that side, necessarily lnake a very acute cone; and they endeavoured by means of geometrical demonstrations to circumvent us; but on this point we very concisely by optical experiments again showed the falsehood of what they alleged; for, fetching a small wooden globe, we drove a nail into it by which we held it in our hands, and on stretching it out to the sun, we saw that the shadow was round and not conical. And we said to them, look you now hOiN small the spherc is which we hold out, and how great, according to you at any rate, the sun is, and yet he does not make a conical but a round shadow.1 And we made the experiment both at a short and at a lang distance-and they found nothing to show the truth of what they say, but with their specious sophistries they delude the multitude .. We, again, fetehing a cone-shaped vessel, then showed them that a conical body produces a shadow conical like itse1f. And, it is the truth I speak, 0 most God-beloved Father, through the power of Christ they went away dUlnbfounded and sadly crestfallen, having been put to shame by our exposure of their fictions. And now behold, we also, in accordance with an art of theirs, having drawn lines and itnprinted one for each climate as they are wont to do, are able, if first
strengthened by the divine power, to show that the sun is not greater than two climates, in order that they may learn in this manner not to arch their neck proudly, but to bow sublnissively to divine scripture.
