Note 368 — Chapter VI · THE FINDING OF STRANGE COASTS.

Footnote 368: Another notion, less easily explicable and less commonly entertained, but interesting for its literary associations, was the notion of a mountain of loadstone in the Indian ocean, which prevented access to the torrid zone by drawing the nails from ships and thus wrecking them. This imaginary mountain, with some variations in the description, is made to carry a serious geographical argument by the astrologer Pietro d' Abano, in his book Conciliator Differentiarum, written about 1312. (See Major, Prince Henry the Navigator, p. 100.) It plays an important part in one of the finest tales in the Arabian Nights,—the story of the "Third Royal Mendicant."[Back to Main Text]