Compendium of Cosmographical Disciplines

has become known, is also shown to be very large. Just as, besides these four elements, a Fifth Body is given within the Heaven, superior to them, with its fifth [shape]—that is, placed by comparison to itself—a polygonal figure, and capable of being placed both within a sphere and outside of it: so too did God will the five-fold face of the terrestrial globe to be distinguished. They ought to call the first and most noble of all, of fabulous memory, Asia, but truly Semiam named after Sem (Shem), its first possessor, from Sem, the first possessor. Following in size, though inferior in nobility to Asia, it received the fabulous name of Africa, when it ought to have been called Chamesechamesia a term Postel derives to connect the region to Ham by a certain naming. Iapetus, whom the sacred [texts] truly call Japheth, more justly ought to give or restore the name of Iapetia the region of Japheth to his own part—just as it is the smallest among the three in our globe, yet in its monuments it is inferior to none at all—