“ According to Cosmas the earth is a rectangular plane, covered by the vaulted roof of the firmament, above which lies heaven. In the centre of the plane is the inhabited earth, surrounded by ocean, beyond which lies the paradise of Adam. The sun revolves round a conical mountain to the north—round the summit in summer, round the base in winter, which accounts for the difference in the length of the day. Cosmas is supposed by some to have been a Nestorian. ”

“ He subsequently became a monk, and about 548, in the retirement of a Sinai cloister, wrote a work called Topographia Christiana. Its chief object is to denounce the false and heathen doctrine of the rotundity of the earth, and to vindicate the scriptural account of the world. ”