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 quae media est, non est habitabilis aestu.  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. Thomas neere AEthiopia, and the wealthy Islands for the which chiefly all these voyages are taken in hand, to be inhabited euen vnder the Equinoctiall line.

[Sidenote:  Sol. 3.] To answere the third obiection, besides Cabota and all other trauellers nauigations, the onely credit of M. Frobisher[46] may suffice, who lately through all these Islands of ice, and mountaines of snow, passed that way, euen beyond the gulfe that tumbleth downe from the North, and in some places though he drewe one inch thicke ice, as he returning in August did, yet came he home safely againe.

[Sidenote:  Sol. 4.] The fourth argument is altogether friuolous and vaine, for neither is there any isthmos or strait of land betweene America and Asia, ne can these two landes ioyntly be one continent. [Sidenote:  Lib.  Geog.] The first part of my answere is manifestly allowed of by Homer, whom that excellent Geographer Strabo followeth, yeelding him in this facultie the price.  The author of that booke likewise [Greek:  peri kosmou] to Alexander, attributed vnto Aristotle, is of the same opinion that Homer and Strabo be of, in two or three places.  Dionisius in [Greek:  oikoumenaes periaegaesi] hath this verse [Greek:  otos hokeanos peridedrome gaian hapasan.] So doth the Ocean Sea runne round about the worlde:  speaking onely of Europe, Afrike and Asia, as then Asia was trauelled and knowen. [Sidenote:  Note.] With these Doctours may you ioyne Pomponius Mela. cap. 2. lib 1.  Plinius lib. 2. cap. 67. and Pius 2. cap 2. in his description of Asia. [Sidenote:  Richard Eden.] All the which writers doe no lesse confirme the whole Easterne side of Asia to be compassed about with the sea, then Plato doeth affirme in Timaeo, vnder the name Atlantis, the West indies to be an Island, as in a special discoure thereof R. Eden writeth, agreeable vnto the sentence of Proclus, Marsilius Ficinus, and others.  Out of Plato it is gathered that America is an island.  Homer, Strabo, Aristotle, Dionysius, Mela, Plinie, Pius 2. affirme the continent of Asia, Afrike, and Europe to be enuironed with the Ocean.  I may therefore boldly say (though later intelligences thereof had we none at all) that Asia and the West Indies be not tied together by any Isthmos or straight of land, contrary to the opinion of some new Cosmographers, by whom doubtfully this matter hath bin brought in controuersie.  And thus much for the first part of my answere vnto the fourth obiection.