Many strange places, Isthmi, Euripi, Chersonesi, creekes, havens, promontories, straights, lakes, bathes, rocks, mountaines, places, and fields, where Cities have bin ruined or swallowed, battels fought, creatures, Sea-monsters, Remora, &c. minerals, vegetals. Zoophites were fit to be considered in such an expedition, and amongst the rest, that of Herbastein his Tartar lambe, Hector Boethius goosebearing tree in the Orchades, to which Cardan lib. 7. cap. 36. de rerum varietat. subscribes:

Vertomannus wonderfull palme, that fly in Hispaniola, that shines like a torch in the night, that one may well see to write; those sphericall stones in Cuba which nature hath so made, and those like Birds, Beasts, Fishes, Crowns, Swords, Sawes, Pots, &c. usually found in the metall-mines in Saxony about Mansfeld, and in Poland neer Nokow and Pallukie, as Munster and others relate.

Many rare creatures and novelties each part of the world affords: amongst the rest, I would know for a certain whether there be any such men, as Leo Suavius in his comment on Paracelsus de sanit. tuend. and Gaguinus records in his description of Muscovie, that in Lucomoria, a Province in Russia, lye fast asleep as dead all winter, from the 27. of November, like frogges and swallowes, benummed with cold, but about the 24. of April in the Spring they revive again, and goe about their business.

I would examine that demonstration of Alexander Picolomineus, whether the earths superficies be bigger than the seas; or that of Archimedes be true, the superficies of all water is even? Search the depth, and see that variety of Sea-monsters and fishes, Mare-maids, Sea-men, Horses, &c. which it affords.

Or whether that be true which Iordanus Brunus scoffes at, that if God did not detain it, the Sea would overflow the earth by reason of his higher site, and which Josephus Blancanus the Jesuite in his interpretation on those mathematicall places of Aristotle, foolishly fears, and in a just tract proves by many circumstances, that in time the Sea will waste away the land, and all the globe of the earth shall be covered with waters; Risum teneatis amici? what the sea takes away in one place it addes in another.

Me thinks he might rather suspect the Sea should in time be filled by land, trees grow up, carcasses, &c. that all-devouring fire, omnia devorans & consumens, will sooner cover and dry up the vast Ocean with sand and ashes.

I would examine the true seat of that terrestriall Paradise, and where Ophir was whence Solomon did fetch his gold; from Peruana, which some suppose, or that Aurea Chersonesus, as Dominicus Niger, Arias Montanus, Goropius, and others will.

I would censure all Plinies, Solinus, Strabo’s, Sr John Mandevils, Olaus Magnus, Marcus Polus lyes, correct those errors in navigation, reforme Cosmographicall Chartes, and rectifie longitudes, if it were possible; not by the Compass, as some dream, with Mark Ridley in his treatise of magneticall bodies, cap. 43. for as Cabeus magnet. philos. lib. 3. cap. 4. fully resolves, there is no hope thence, yet I would observe some better meanes to find them out.

I would have a convenient place to goe down with Orpheus, Ulysses, Hercules, Lucians Menippus, at St. Patricks Purgatory, at Trophonius den, Hecla in Island, Ætna in Sicily, to descend and see what is done in the bowels of the earth; do stones and metalls grow there still? how come firre trees to be digged out from tops of hills, as in our mosses, & marishes all over Europe?

How come they to dig up fish bones, shells, beams, ironworks, many fathomes under ground, & anchors in mountains far remote from all seas. Anno 1460. at Berna in Switzerland 50. fathom deep a ship was dig’d out of a mountain, where they got metall ore, in which were 48. carcasses of men, with other merchandise.

That such things are ordinarily found in tops of hils, Aristotle insinuates in his meteors, Pomponius Mela in his first book, c. de Numidia, and familiarly in the Alpes saith Blancanus the Jesuite, the like is to be seen: Came this from Earth-quakes, or from Noahs floud, as Christians suppose, or is there a vicissitude of Sea & land, as Anaximenes held of old, the mountaines of Thessaly would become Seas, and Seas again Mountaines?

The whole world belike should be new moulded, when it seemed good to those all-commanding Powers, & turned inside out, as we do hay-cocks in Harvest, top to bottom, or bottom to top: or as we turn apples to the fire, move the world upon his Center; that which is under the Poles now, should be translated to the Æquinoctiall, & that which is under the torrid Zone to the Circle Artique & Antarctique another while, and so be reciprocally warmed by the Sun:

or if the worlds be infinite, and every fixed star a Sun, with his compassing Planets (as Brunus and Campanella conclude) cast three or four Worlds into one; or else of one old world make three or four new, as it shall seem to them best.

To proceed, if the earth be 21500. miles in compass, its Diameter is 7000. from us to our Antipodes, and what shall be comprehended in all that space? What is the Center of the earth? is it pure element only, as Aristotle decrees, inhabited (as Paracelsus thinks) with creatures, whose Chaos is the earth: or with Fairies, as the woods and waters (according to him) are with Nymphes, or as the Aire with Spirits?

Dionisiodorus, a Mathematician in Pliny, that sent a letter ad superos after he was dead, from the Center of the earth, to signifie what distance the same center was from the superficies of the same, viz. 42000. stadiums, might have done well to have satisfied all these doubts.