Page:Diuers voyages touching the discouerie of America - Hakluyt - 1582.djvu/33

difficultie, it is necessary to declare to your Lordshippe my intent, with which I trust you shal perceiue in this card part of your desire, if, for that I cannot expresse mine intent, with my declaratiõ I doe not make it more obscure.

First, your Lordship knoweth that the Cosmographers haue deuided the earth by 360. degrees in latitude, and as many in longitude, vnder the which is comprehended al the roundnesse of the earth: the latitude beeing deuided into 4. quarters, ninetie degrees amount to euerie quarter, which they measure by the altitude of the poles, that is the North and South starres, beeing from the line equinoctiall till they come right vnder the North starre the saide ninetie degrees: and asmuche from the sayde line equinoctiall to the South starre bee other ninetie degrees. And asmuche more is also from eyther of the saide starres agayne to the equinoctiall. Which imagined to be rounde, is soone perceiued thus, 360. degrees of latitude to be consumed in the said foure quarters, of ninetie degrees a quarter, so that this latitude is the measure of the worlde from North to South, and from South to North. And the longitude, in which are also counted other 360. is counted frõ West to East, or from East to West, as in the card is set. The said latitude your Lordship may see marked and deuided in the end of this carde in the left hande.To know the latitudes. So that if you woulde know in what degrees of latitude any region or coast standeth, take a compasse and set the one foote of the same in the equinoctiall line right against the said region, and apply the other foote of the compasse to the saide region or coast, and then set the sayd compasse at the ende of the carde, where the degrees are deuided. And the one foote of the cõpasse standing in the line equinoctiall, the other will shewe in the scale the degrees of altitude or latitude that the sayd region is in. Also the longitude of the worlde I haue set out in the nether part of the carde, contayning also 360. degrees: which begin to be coũted after Ptolome and other Cosmographers from an head land called Capo verde, which is ouer against a little crosse made in the parte occidentall, wherethe