ZON'ARAS, JOANNES (Lat., from Gk.'bocivens Zwpapas). A Byzantine annalist of the first half of the twelfth century. He lived at Constan tinople, where he was commander of the imperial guard and private secretary to Alexius 1. and Joannes Comnemis. In the reign of the latter he became a monk at Mount Athos, where he de voted himself to writing. His most important work is the Chroniron or A analcs., which relates the history of the world from the creation to 1118, the date of the death of Alexius 1. Ile drew upon Josephus, Xenophon, and Plutarch ; hut the chief value of his works, in view of the fact that his contemporary record is meagre. is in that he follows the first twenty books of Dion Cassius, which are known to us only in this way. He also wrote an Exposition of the ..tpostoliral Canons. A Lexicon, edited by Tittmann (1808), is falsely attributed to him. The Chronicon was edited by Dindorf (Leipzig, 18(18-75).
ZONE (Fr. zone. from Lat. zone, from Gk.
rufnm, girdle; connected with Lith. justa. °Church Slay. po-josii, girdle, Alban. nge§, I gird, Av.
girded). A subdivision of the earth's sur face, determined by certain astronomical con ditions. The boundary lines of the zones are parallels of latitude, so that a zone includes all of the earth's surface lying between two given parallels of latitude. The torrid zone lies be tween the parallels of 23° 28' N. and 23° 28' S. This number corresponds to the inclination of the earth's orbital plane to the equatorial plane; the sun is always vertically overhead over some point within that zone.
The polar or frigid zones lie between the poles and the parallels of 66° 32' N. and S. Within them the solar rays always strike the earth very obliquely, and great cold results. The tem prrat( zones lie between the polar and torrid zones. See CLIMATE; EARTH; SEASONS; ECLIP TIC; i'OLSTICE: TROPIC.