alvorsilves

Para além dos Açores, Manuel de Figueiredo dá mais dois pontos de declinação zero (a 45º a noroeste e nordeste dessas ilhas), tornando claro que estavam cientes da complexidade das linhas. Dá-nos uma pista histórica para a localização das linhas no Séc. XVI, com 3 pontos para uma linha de declinação zero.

Qualquer mapa formado com base nas declinações magnéticas teria as deformações decorrentes da complexidade destas linhas, o que justificaria algumas formas mais estranhas nos mapas (mas não todas... algumas foram propositadas, como já sabemos).

Ainda até agora se não deu na causa porque esta pedra de sevar não atira direita ao pólo do mundo, e nem por que atira para o norte, muitos dão muitas razões, mas nenhuma delas acerta(...)

`(...) For instance, no one could tell whether Alexandria in Egypt were north or south of Babylon, nor yet the intervening distance, without observing the latitudes. Again, the only means we possess of becoming acquainted with the longitudes of different places is afforded by the eclipses of the sun and moon.’ Such are the very words of Hipparchus.

At the same time the idea of this circumnavigation, which owes its origin to Crates, is not necessary; we do not mean it was impossible, (for the wanderings of Ulysses are not impossible)

So that if the extent of the Atlantic Ocean were not an obstacle, we might easily pass by sea from Iberia to India, still keeping in the same parallel; the remaining portion of which parallel, measured as above in stadia, occupies more than a third of the whole circle

Nor is it likely that the Atlantic Ocean is divided into two seas by narrow isthmuses so placed as to prevent circumnavigation: how much more probable that it is confluent and uninterrupted! Those who have returned from an attempt to circumnavigate the earth, do not say they have been prevented from continuing their voyage by any opposing continent, for the sea remained perfectly open, but through want of resolution, and the scarcity of provision. 

For in the east the land occupied by the Indians, and in the west by the Iberians and Maurusians, is wholly encompassed [by water], and so is the greater part on the south and north. And as to what remains as yet unexplored by us, because navigators, sailing from opposite points, have not hitherto fallen in with each other, it is not much, as any one may see who will compare the distances between those places with which we are already acquainted.

Para além dos Açores, Manuel de Figueiredo dá mais dois pontos de declinação zero (a 45º a noroeste e nordeste dessas ilhas), tornando claro que estavam cientes da complexidade das linhas. Dá-nos uma pista histórica para a localização das linhas no Séc. XVI, com 3 pontos para uma linha de declinação zero.

Qualquer mapa formado com base nas declinações magnéticas teria as deformações decorrentes da complexidade destas linhas, o que justificaria algumas formas mais estranhas nos mapas (mas não todas... algumas foram propositadas, como já sabemos).

Ainda até agora se não deu na causa porque esta pedra de sevar não atira direita ao pólo do mundo, e nem por que atira para o norte, muitos dão muitas razões, mas nenhuma delas acerta(...)

`(...) For instance, no one could tell whether Alexandria in Egypt were north or south of Babylon, nor yet the intervening distance, without observing the latitudes. Again, the only means we possess of becoming acquainted with the longitudes of different places is afforded by the eclipses of the sun and moon.’ Such are the very words of Hipparchus.

At the same time the idea of this circumnavigation, which owes its origin to Crates, is not necessary; we do not mean it was impossible, (for the wanderings of Ulysses are not impossible)

So that if the extent of the Atlantic Ocean were not an obstacle, we might easily pass by sea from Iberia to India, still keeping in the same parallel; the remaining portion of which parallel, measured as above in stadia, occupies more than a third of the whole circle

Nor is it likely that the Atlantic Ocean is divided into two seas by narrow isthmuses so placed as to prevent circumnavigation: how much more probable that it is confluent and uninterrupted! Those who have returned from an attempt to circumnavigate the earth, do not say they have been prevented from continuing their voyage by any opposing continent, for the sea remained perfectly open, but through want of resolution, and the scarcity of provision. 

For in the east the land occupied by the Indians, and in the west by the Iberians and Maurusians, is wholly encompassed [by water], and so is the greater part on the south and north. And as to what remains as yet unexplored by us, because navigators, sailing from opposite points, have not hitherto fallen in with each other, it is not much, as any one may see who will compare the distances between those places with which we are already acquainted.