To Answer The Third Objection, Besides Cabot And All Other Travellers' Navigations, The Only Credit Of Master Frobisher May Suffice,

Who lately, through all these islands of ice and mountains of snow, passed that way, even beyond the gulf that

Tumbleth down from the north, and in some places, though he drew one inch thick ice, as he returning in August did, came home safely again.

The fourth argument is altogether frivolous and vain, for neither is there any isthmus or strait of land between America and Asia, nor can these two lands jointly be one continent. The first part of my answer is manifestly allowed by Homer, whom that excellent geographer, Strabo, followeth, yielding him in this faculty the prize. The author of that book likewise On the Universe to Alexander, attributed unto Aristotle, is of the same opinion that Homer and Strabo be of, in two or three places. Dionysius, in his Periegesis, hath this verse, "So doeth the ocean sea run round about the world:" speaking only of Europe, Africa, and Asia, as then Asia was travelled and known. With these doctors may you join Pomponius Mela, Pliny, Pius, in his description of Asia. All the which writers do no less confirm the whole eastern side of Asia to be compassed about with the sea; then Plato doth affirm in is Timaeus, under the name Atlantis, the West Indies to be an island, as in a special discourse thereof R. Eden writeth, agreeable unto the sentence of Proclus, Marsilius Ficinus, and others. Out of Plato it is gathered that America is an island. Homer, Strabo, Aristotle, Dionysius, Mela, Pliny, Pius, affirm the continent of Asia, Africa, and Europe, to be environed 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 isthmus or strait of land, contrary to the opinion of some new cosmographers, by whom doubtfully this matter hath been brought in controversy. And thus much for the first part of my answer unto the fourth objection.

The second part, namely, that America and Asia cannot be one continent, may thus be proved:- "The most rivers take down that way their course, where the earth is most hollow and deep," writeth Aristotle; and the sea (saith he in the same place), as it goeth further, so is it found deeper. Into what gulf do the Moscovian rivers Onega, Dwina, Ob, pour out their streams? northward out of Moscovy into the sea. Which way doth that sea strike? The south is main land, the eastern coast waxeth more and more shallow: from the north, either naturally, because that part of the earth is higher, or of necessity, for that the forcible influence of some northern stars causeth the earth there to shake off the sea, as some philosophers do think; or, finally, for the great store of waters engendered in that frosty and cold climate, that the banks are not able to hold them.

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