ABSTRACT
BIARMIA 1 is a territory in the far North, 2 whose zenith is at the northern celestial pole itself. Its horizon is identical with the celestial equator, and this, cutting the zodiac into two equal parts, causes one half of the year to become a single period of daylight and the other half night, so that the whole year there is like one twenty-four-hour day. But as the sun in those parts never sinks more than twenty-three degrees below the horizon, it appears (according to the author of The Sphere) that the people enjoy an everlasting, nightless day. In every part of the world daylight becomes visible, in Ptolemy’s view, before the sun lifts above the horizon and while it is still eighteen degrees below it, or, according to others, about thirty degrees, that is to say, by the breadth of one zodiacal sign. To this extent the author of The Sphere gave his explanation in accordance with Nature. What he afterwards added, however, is unjust to Nature, for he should have calculated that she has greater foresight for the preservation of the universe. He wants to obscure with incessant clouds the uninterrupted light granted by Nature’s kindness, and maintains that the sun’s rays which shine there are so weak in strength that they can neither destroy nor clear away the mists that have risen from the earth. As a consequence, he asserts, no bright air or daylight exists there. 2 Such was his opinion. But on the opposing side rise two great natural philosophers, Pliny and Solinus, who declare that through the ceaseless presence of the sun’s light everything there is endangered by that body’s unbearable heat. 3 So these, like the former writer, have gone astray, thrusting Nature from excessive cold to excessive heat, and between them have rashly condemned her, furnishing other scholars too with an opportunity for error. If they had only pondered more deeply on God’s providence and Nature’s guidance, they would have spoken with greater qualification and not dashed against a Scylla or Charybdis.
Opinion of the author of The Sphere
Opinion of Pliny and Solinus
