Peter Alphonsi,[719] also influenced by Arabic reasoning, argued that the existence of Arin on the equator was sufficient evidence of the habitability of the equatorial regions and gave a glowing account of the temperate climate and attractions of those parts of the world. Man can live throughout the entire area covered by the seven climates, he maintained, and, as his interpretation of ancient authorities led him to suppose that the first climate began at the equator, he was convinced that the equator also would support human life. On the other hand, he did not agree with the preamble to the _Marseilles Tables_, for he maintained that the parts of the earth in the southern hemisphere beyond Arin were not habitable. This was because the sun, on account of the eccentricity of its orbit, approaches much nearer the earth in those climes than it does in more northern latitudes. In this way he accounted for the excessive cold of the Arctic and polar regions and a (supposed) excessive heat of the trans-equatorial zones. Plato of Tivoli’s translation of Al-Battānī’s work brought to Western knowledge another Arabic discussion of the probable characteristics of the areas of the earth’s surface unknown to man.[720] As to the equator, Al-Battānī said, it was uncertain whether men had actually been there or not. The climate, however, could not be excessively hot, because the sun in crossing the zenith, as it does twice a year between the tropics, does not remain directly overhead very long. Al-Battānī saw no reason why winters and summers should not be temperate in countries along the equator and believed that these latitudes must have, in fact, a climate not greatly unlike that of Aden and Yemen, which, however hot it may seem to the European, apparently did not impress the Arabs by its torridity. The unknown districts of the world, Al-Battānī went on to explain, comprise eleven-twelfths of the whole. Though no man had ever reached them, he thought it not irrational to suppose that they were like the known parts, for the sun and stars must pass across them and produce in the same way winter and summer, the tides of the sea, and animal and vegetable life. GROSSETESTE ON THE HABITABLE PARTS OF THE EARTH When we come to the close of our period, we find that Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln, and after him his more famous pupil Roger Bacon, like Peter Alphonsi, took over from the Moslems much geographical and astronomical lore which they interpreted and freely criticized.