MEMB. 3. Ayr rectified. With a digression of the Ayr.

As a long-winged Hawk when he is first whistled off the fist, mounts aloft, and for his pleasure fetcheth many a circuit in the Ayr, still soaring higher and higher, till he be come to his full pitch, and in the end when the game is sprung, comes down amain, and stoopes upon a sudden: so will I, having now come at last into these ample fields of Ayre, wherein I may freely expatiate and exercise my self for my recreation, a while rove, wander round about the world, mount aloft to those æthereall orbs and celestiall spheres, and so descend to my former elements again.

In which progress, I will first see whether that relation of the Frier of Oxford be true, concerning those Northern parts under the Pole (if I meet obitèr with the wandring Iew, Elias Artifex, or Lucians Icaromenippus, they shall be my guides) whether there be such 4. Euripes, and a great rock of Loadstones, which may cause the needle in the Compass still to bend that way,

and what should be the true cause of the variation of the compass, is it a magneticall rock, or the Pole-star, as Cardan will; or some other star in the bear, as Marsilius Ficinus; or a magneticall meridian, as Maurolicus; Vel situs in venâ terræ, as Agricola; or the nearness of the next Continent, as Cabeus will; or some other cause, as Scaliger, Cortesius, Conimbricenses, Peregrinus, contend;

why at the Azores it looks directly North, otherwise not? In the Mediterranean or Levant (as some observe) it varies 7. grad. by and by 12. and then 22. In the Baltick Seas, near Raseburg in Finland, the needle runs round, if any ships come that way, though Martin Ridley write otherwise, that the needle near the Pole will hardly be forced from his direction.

’Tis fit to be enquired whether certain rules may be made of it, as 11. grad. Lond. variat. alibi 36. &c. and that which is more prodigious, the variation varies in the same place, now taken accurately, ’tis so much after a few years quite altered from that it was: till we have better intelligence, let our D. Gilbert, and Nicholas Cabeus the Iesuite, that have both written great volumes of this subject, satisfie these Inquisitors.

Whether the sea be open and navigable by the Pole artick, and which is the likeliest way, that of Bartison the Hollander, under the Pole it self, which for some reasons I hold best; or by fretum Davys, or Nova Zembla.

Whether Hudsons discovery be true of a new found Ocean, any likelihood of Buttons bay in 50. degrees, Hubberds hope in 60. that of ut ultra near Sir Thomas Roes welcome in North-west Fox, being that the sea ebbs and flows constantly there 15. foot in 12. hours, as our new Cards inform us that California is not a Cape, but an Iland, and the West-windes make the Nepe tides equall to the Spring, or that there be any probability to pass by the straights of Anian to China, by the Promontory of Tabin.

If there be, I shall soon perceive whether Marcus Polus the Venetians narration be true or false, of that great City of Quinsay and Cambalu; whether there be any such places, or that as Matth. Riccius the Iesuite hath written, China and Cataia be all one, the great Cham of Tartary and the King of China be the same: Xuntain and Quinsay, and the City of Cambalu be that new Paquin, or such a wall 400. leagues long to part China from Tartary:

whether Presbyter Iohn be in Asia or Africk; M. Polus Venetus puts him in Asia, the most received opinion is, that he is Emperour of the Abissines, which of old was Æthiopia, now Nubia, under the Æquator in Africk.

Whether Guinea be an Iland or part of the Continent, or that hungry Spaniards discovery of Terra Australis Incognita, or Magellanica, be as true as that of Mercurius Britannius, or his of Vtopia, or his of Lucinia. And yet in likelihood it may be so, for without all question it being extended from the Tropick of Capricorn to the circle Antarctick, and lying as it doth in the temperate Zone, cannot chuse but yeeld in time some flourishing kingdomes to succeeding ages, as America did unto the Spaniards.

Shouten and Le Meir have done well in the discovery of the Streights of Magellan, in finding a more convenient passage to Mare pacificum: me thinks some of our modern Argonautes should prosecute the rest.

As I go by Madagascar, I would see that great Bird Rucke, that can carry a man and horse or an Elephant, with that Arabian Phœnix described by Adricomius; see the Pellicanes of Ægypt, those Scythian Gryphes in Asia:

And afterwards in Africk examine the fountains of Nilus, whether Herodotus, Seneca, Plin. lib.5. cap.9. Strabo. lib.5. give a true cause of his annuall flowing, Pagaphetta discourse rightly of it, or of Niger and Senega; examine Cardan, Scaligers reasons, and the rest.

Is it from those Etesian winds, or melting of snow in the Mountains under the Æquator (for Iordan yearly overflows when the snow melts in Mount Libanus) or from those great dropping perpetuall showres, which are so frequent to the inhabitants within the Tropicks, when the Sun is verticall, and cause such vast inundations in Senega, Maragnan, Orenoque, and the rest of those great rivers in Zona Torrida, which have all commonly the same passions at set times: and by good husbandry and policy, hereafter no doubt may come to be as populous, as well tilled, as fruitfull as Ægypt it self, or Cauchinthina?