nd assuming these things (as though they
were perfectly true), he makes a large compass indicating degrees and
minutes, by which these proportional changes of the versorium might be
observed. But those very principles are false, and ill conceived, and very
ill considered; for the versorium does not turn more to the east because a
journey is made toward the east: and although the variation in the more
westerly parts of Europe and the adjoining ocean is to the east and beyond
the Azores is changed a little to the west, yet the variation is, in
various ways, always uncertain, both on account of longitude and of
latitude, and because of the approach toward extensive tracts of land, and
also because of the form of the dominant terrestrial eminences; nor does
it, as we have before demonstrated, follow the rule of any particular
meridian. It is with the same vanity also that Livio Sanuto so greatly
torments himself and his readers. As for the fact that the crowd of
philosophizers and sailors suppose that the meridian passing through the
Azores marks the limits of variation, so that on the other and opposite
side of that meridian a magnetick body necessarily respects the poles
exactly, which is also the opinion of Joannes Baptista Benedictus and of
many other writers on navigation, it is by no means true. Stevinus (on the
authority of Hugo Grotius) in his _Havenfinding Art_ distinguishes the
variation according to the meridians: "It may be seene in the Table of
variations, that in _Coruo_ the Magneticall needle pointeth due North: but
after that, the more a man shal goe towards the East, so much the more also
shall he see the needle varie towards the East [[Greek: anatolizein]], till
he come one mile to the Eastward from _Plimouth_, where the variation
comming to the greatest is 13 degr. 24 min. From hence the Northeasting
[Anatolismus] beginneth to decrease, til you come to _Helmshude_ (which
place is Westward from the North Cape of Finmark) where againe the needle
pointeth due North. Now the longitude from _Coruo_ to _Helmshude_ is 60
degr. Which things being well weighed, it appeareth that the greatest
variation [Chalyboclysis] 13 degr. 24 minutes at _Plimmouth_ (the longitude
whereof is 30 degr.) is in the midst betweene the places where the needle
pointeth due North." But although this is in some part true in these
places, yet it is by no means true that along the whole of the meridian of
the island of Corvo the versorium loo