For a good discussion of Cosmas's ideas, see Santarem, Hist.

de la Cosmographie, vol.ii, pp.

8 et seq., and for a very thorough discussion of its details, Kretschmer, as above.

For still another theory, very droll, and thought out on similar principles, see Mungo Park, cited in De Morgan, Paradoxes, p.309.For Cosmas's joyful summing up, see Montfaucon, Collectio Nova Patrum, vol.ii, p.255.For the curious survival in the thirteenth century of the old idea of the "waters above the heavens," see the story in Gervase of Tilbury, how in his time some people coming out of church in England found an anchor let down by a rope out of the heavens, how there came voices from sailors above trying to loose the anchor, and, finally, how a sailor came down the rope, who, on reaching the earth, died as if drowned in water.

See Gervase of Tilbury, Otia Imperialia, edit.