Note 71 — Chapter I · THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE ANCIENT WORLD
Reading edition
See Tillinghast, Geogr. Knowl., 1889, pp. 6–12; Berger, Geschichte, 1903, p. 625; Norlind, Problem, 1918, passim, for discussions of the continental and oceanic theories in antiquity and in the Middle Ages. Roger Bacon (Opus majus, Bridges’ edit., vol. i, 1897, p. 290) states that “Ptolemaeus vero in libro de dispositione sphaerae vult quod fere sexta pars terrae est habitabilis propter aquam, et totum residuum est coopertum aqua.” That this should have been the opinion of Ptolemy is difficult to reconcile with his advocacy of unknown lands beyond the oikoumene enclosing the Indian and Atlantic Oceans (Geogr., I, 17, 6; VII, 3, 6; VII, 5, 2; see Berger, Geschichte, pp. 625, 627, 629).