I have always read that the world of land and sea is spherical. All authorities and the recorded experiments of Ptolemy and the rest, based on the eclipses of the moon and other observations made from east to west, and on the height of the Pole Star made from north to south, have constantly drawn and confirmed this picture, which they held to be true. Now, I have found such great irregularities [observed on my voyages] that I have come to the following conclusion concerning the world: that it is not round as they describe it, but the shape of a pear, which is round everywhere except at the stalk, where it juts out a long way; or that it is like a round ball, on part of which is something like a woman’s nipple. This point on which the protuberance stands is the highest and nearest to the sky. […] I believe that the earthly Paradise lies here, which no-one can enter except by God’s leave.

From The Four Voyages of Christopher Columbus, London: Penguin, 1969, pp. 217-218, 221.