so he straightway finds an explanation for this fact in the postulate that lines in young people's hands speak as to the future, and in old men's as to the past. Later he goes on to affirm that lines in the hand cannot be treated as mere wrinkles arising from the folding of the skin, unless we are prepared to admit that wrinkled people are more humorous than others, alluding no doubt to the lines in the face caused by laughter, a proposition which does not seem altogether convincing or consequential, unless we also postulate that all humorous men laugh at every joke. There is a line in the hand which he calls the _linea jecoraria_, and the triangle formed by this and the _linea vitae_ and the _linea cerebri_, rules the disposition of the subject, due consideration being given to the acuteness or obtuseness of the angles of this triangle. Cardan seems to have based his treatise on one written by a certain Ruffus Ephesius, and it is without doubt one of the dullest portions of his work.[123] It is almost certain that Cardan purposed to let the _De Varietate_ come forth from the press immediately after the _De Subtilitate_, but before the MS. was ready, it came to pass that he was called to make that memorable journey to Scotland in order to find a remedy for the ailment which was troubling the Archbishop of St. Andrews, a journey which has given to Britons a special interest in his life and work. In dealing with the Cosmos in the _De Subtilitate_ he had indeed made brief mention of Britain; but, writing then, he had no personal relations with either England or Scotland, or the people thereof; and, but for his subsequent visit, he would not have been able to set down in the pages of his second book so many interesting and suggestive notes of what he had seen and heard, and his ideas of the politics of the time. Again, if he had not been urged by the desire all men feel to read what others may have to say about places they have visited, it is not likely that he would have searched the volumes of Hector Boethius and other early writers for legends and stories of our island. Writing of Britain[124] in the _De Subtilitate_ he had praised its delicate wool and its freedom from poisonous beasts: a land where the wolf had been exterminated, and where the sheep might roam unvexed by any beast more formidable than the fox. The inordinate breeding of rooks seems even in those days[125] to have led to a war of extermination against them, carried on upon a system akin to that which was waged against the sparrow in the memory of men yet living. But besides this one, he records, in the _De Subtilitate_, few facts concerning Britain. He quotes the instances of Duns Scotus and Suisset in support of the view that the barbarians are equal to the Italians in intellect,[126] and he likewise notices the use of a fertilizing earth--presumably marl--in agriculture,[127] and the longevity of the people, some of whom have reached their hundred and twentieth year.[128]