Page:On the Magnet - Gilbert (1900 translation of 1600 work).djvu/202

 that the truth becomes known in such a high latitude (of about 80 degrees). Now, however, from the deviation of the compass the reason for there being an open course to the east by the Arctick Ocean appears manifest; for since the versorium has so ample a variation toward the north-west, it is demonstrable that a continent does not extend any great distance in the whole of that course toward the east. Therefore with the greater hope can the sea be attempted and explored toward the east for a passage to the Moluccas by the north-east than by the north-west.

ASSING the Strait of Magellan the deviation on the shore of Peru is toward the south-east, i.e., from the south toward the east. And a similar deflection would be continued along the whole coast of Peru as far as the æquator. In a higher latitude up to 45 deg. the variation is greater than near the æquator; and the deflection toward the south-east is in nearly the same proportion as was the deviation from the south toward the west on the eastern shore of South America. From the æquator toward the North there is little or no variation until one comes to New Galicia; and thence along the whole shore as far as Quivira the inclination is from the north toward the east.

ICILIAN and Italian sailors think that in the Sicilian Sea and toward the east up to the meridian of the Peloponnesus (as Franciscus Maurolycus relates) the magnetick needle "græcizes," that is, turns from the pole toward what is called the greek wind or Boreas; that on the shore of the Peloponnesus it looks toward the true pole; but that when they have proceeded further east, then it "mistralizes," because it tends from the pole toward the mistral or north-west wind: which agrees with our rule for the variation. For as the Mediterranean Sea is extended toward the west from that meridian, so on the side