Artic. 6. Of the Sun's shadow.
TWo things chiefly are observable concerning the Suns shadow, the operation and the diversity. It can hardly be said how great it is. Men skill'd in the Opticks have described it more acurately. It shews the reason of Eclipses, the Suns magnitude, the variety of Eccentricks, the condition of time hath been demonstrated by it. Men are taught thereby to define the climates and parallells, to prove the Earth to be round, and that the Earths Globe stands exactly in the midst of the Universe, to know the Earths magnitude: &c. Exam∣ples shew the diversity; Those that dwell Northward between the Tropick of Cancer and the Arctick Circle, their Noon-shadowes are cast Northward, and to the Southern people Southward. They of Finmarch and Groenland, and that passe the degree of elevation 66, see the shadows run round about them: Gauricus in Geograph.
In Syene a Town above Alexandria, 5000 furlongs, at noon-day on the solstice, there is no shadow at all, and a pit was made to make experiment of it, and the Sun shined to every part in it. Pliny, l. 2. c. 73. And in India above the River Hispasis, the same falls out a•• the same time, as Onesicritus hath recorded.
In the Island of Merce, which is the chief of the Ethiopian Country, the shadows fail twice a year, and in Summer they are cast South∣wards; in winter toward the North. In the same, in the most famous Haven of Patales, the Sun riseth on the right hand, the shadowes fly Southward. It is lastly manifest, that in Berenice a City of the Tro∣glodytes, and from thence for 4820 furlongs in the same Country, in the Town of Ptolemais, which is built on the brink of the red Sea▪ at the first hunting of Elephants, the same thing falls out 45. dayes be∣fore