Here's a map of the North Pole, the center of the earth from the 16th century. At the center of the map, and right at the Pole, stands a huge black mountain made of lodestone, and which is the source of the earth’s powerful magnetic field. The central mountain is surrounded by open water, and then further out by four large islands that form a ring around the Pole and each island has high mountain along its southern rim. These islands are separated by four large inward-flowing rivers, which are aligned as if to the four points of the compass – though of course there is no north, east, or west at the North Pole : every direction from this center is south. The waters of the oceans are carried northward to the Pole through these rivers with great force, such that no wind can make a ship sail against the current. The waters then disappear into an enormous whirlpool beneath the mountain at the Pole, and are absorbed into the earth. The whirlpool is mostrous. Towards it all seas are coming fr