Note b — BOOK II.

It would be frivolous as well as endless to reckon up the various Opinions of the Ancients about the Figure of the Terraqueous Globe; some of them may be seen in Varen. Geogr. l. 1. c. 3. init. or Johnston’s Thaumat. c. 1. Artic. 3. But among the variety of Opinions, one of the principal was, That the visible Horizon was the Bounds of the Earth, and the Ocean the Bounds of the Horizon, that the Heavens and Earth above this Ocean, was the whole visible Universe; and that all beneath the Ocean was Hades, or the invisible World. Hence, when the Sun set, he was said tingere se Oceano; and when any went to Hades, they must first pass the Ocean. Of this Opinion were not only the ancient Poets, and others among the Heathens, but some of the Christian Fathers too, particularly Lactantius, St. Augustine, and others, who thought their Opinion was favoured by the Psalmist, in Psal. xxiv. 2. and cxxxvi. 6. See Bp. Usher’s Ans. to a Jes. Chall. p. 366. &c.