ANTIPODES

, in Geography, are the inhabitants of two places on the earth which lie diametrically opposite to each other, or that walk feet to feet; that is, if a line be continued down from our feet, quite through the centre of the earth, till it arrive at the surface on the other side, it will fall on the feet of our Antipodes, and vice versa.——Antipodes are 180 degrees distant from each other every way on the surface of the globe; they have equal latitudes, the one north and the other south, but they differ by 180 degrees of longitude: they have therefore the same climates or degrees of heat and cold, with the same seasons and length of days and nights; but all of these at contrary times, it being day to the one, when it is night to the other, summer to the one when it is winter to the other, &c: they have also the same horizon, the one being as far distant on the one side, as the other on the other side, and therefore when the sun, &c, rises to the one, it sets to the other. The Antipodes to London are a part a little south of New Zealand.

It has been said that Plato first started the notion of Antipodes, and gave them the name; which is likely enough, as he conceived that the earth was of a glo- bular figure. But there have been many disputes upon this point, and the fathers of the church have greatly opposed it, especially Lactantius and Augustine, who laughed at it, and were greatly perplexed to think how men and trees should hang pendulous in the air with their feet uppermost, as he thought they must do, in the other hemisphere.