by William Gilbert

“ But the observation of moderns (according to Erasmus Rheinholdus) gives the same in our time as 41 degrees with a sixth: so that you are in doubt as to half of one degree in the centre of the world, whether you show it to have decreased by the earth's obliquity of motion. One may see then how from inexact observations men rashly conceive new and contradictory opinions and imagine absurd motions of the mechanism of the earth. For since Ptolemy only received certain latitudes from Hipparchus, and did not in very many places make the observations himself ”

“ For in one thousand and seventy years it shows itself to be displaced scarce one degree toward the apex of dwellers upon the earth. The strait of Gibraltar shows this, where in Ptolemy's time the North pole appears elevated 36 degrees and a quarter from the Horizon: whereas now it is 37 and two-fifths. The like divergence is also shown at Leucopetra in Calabria, and at particular spots in Italy, namely those which have not changed from Ptolemy's time to our own. ”

“ For it is not credible that the whole series in the book is equally wrong in the figures of the tables: Hence it is necessary to allow that the North pole has been tilted toward the vertical point. Accordingly a lengthy observation has already begun to disclose to us things hidden from our forefathers ”