[Sidenote: _Zones_, _Torrid_, _Temperate_, and _Frigid_.]
4. _Zones_ are large tracts of the surface of the Earth, distinguished
by the tropics and polar circles, being five in number; _viz._ one
_Torrid_, two _Temperate_ and two _Frigid_.
The _Torrid_, or _Burning Zone_, is all the space comprehended between
the two tropics; the ancients imagined this tract of the Earth to be
uninhabitable, because of the excessive heat, it being so near the Sun.
All the inhabitants of the torrid zone have the Sun in their zenith, or
exactly over their heads twice in every year; excepting those who live
exactly under the two tropics, where the Sun comes to their zenith only
once in a year.
The two _Temperate Zones_ lie on either side of the globe, between the
tropics and the polar circles.
The two _Frigid Zones_ are those spaces upon the globe that are
included between the two polar circles.
[Sidenote: _Amphiscians._]
[Sidenote: _Ascians._]
The inhabitants of the Earth are also distinguished by the diversity
of their _Shadows_. Those who live in the torrid zone, are called
_Amphiscians_, because their noon-shadow is cast different ways,
according as the Sun is to the northward or southward of their zenith;
but when the Sun is in their zenith, they are called _Ascians_.
[Sidenote: _Heteroscians._]
[Sidenote: _Ascians Heteroscians._]
[Sidenote: _Periscians._]
The inhabitants of the temperate zones, are called _Heteroscians_,
because their noon-shadow is always cast the same way: But those who
live under the tropics are called _Ascians Heteroscians_; those who
live in the frigid zones are called _Periscians_, because sometimes
their shadow is cast round about them.
These hard names are only _Greek_ words, importing how the Sun casts
the shadow of the several inhabitants of the Earth; which would be a
too trifling distinction to be made here, was it not for the sake of
complying with custom.
The inhabitants of the Earth are also distinguished into three sorts,
in respect to their relative situation to one another, and these are
called the _Periœci_, _Antœci_, and _Antipodes_.
[Sidenote: _Periœci._]
5. The _Periœci_ are those who live under opposite points of the same
parallel of latitude. They have their seasons of the year at the same
time, and their days and nights always of the same length with one
another, but the one’s _Noon_ is the other’s _Midnight_; and when the
Sun is in the equinoctial, he rises with the one, when he sets with the
other. Those who live under the Poles have no _Periœci_.
[Sidenote: _Antœci._]
6. The _Antœci_ live under the same meridian, and in the same latitude,
but on different sides of the equator; their Seasons of the year are
contrary, and the days of the one are equal to the nights of the other,
but the hour of the day and night is the same with both; and when the
Sun is in the equinoctial, he rises and sets to both exactly at the
same time. Those who live under the equator have no _Antœci_.
[Sidenote: _Antipodes._]
7. The _Antipodes_ are those who live diametrically opposite to one
another, standing, as it were, exactly feet to feet: Their days and
nights, summer and winter, are at direct contrary times.
The surface of the Earth is by some distinguished into _Climates_.
[Sidenote: _Climates._]
8. A _Climate_ is a tract of the surface of the Earth, included between
two such parallels of latitude, that the length of the longest day in
the one exceeds that in the other by half an hour.
The whole surface of the Earth is considered, as being divided into
60 climates, _viz._ from the equator to each of the polar circles 24,
arising from the difference of ½ hour in the length of their longest
days; and from the polar circles to the Poles themselves, are six,
arising from the difference of an entire month, the Sun being seen
in the first of these a whole month without setting; in the second
two; and in the third, three months, _&c._ These climates continually
decrease in breadth, the farther they are from the equator. How they
are framed, _viz._ the parallel of latitude in which they end (that
being likewise the beginning of the next) with the respective breadth
of each of them, is shewed in the following table:
_A_ TABLE _of the_ CLIMATES.