Middle-earth??

Quoth "Xentrix" <samuel DeleteThis @moffitt1011.freeserve.co.uk> in article
<burss4$cnv$1@news7.svr.pol.co.uk>:
> Are Aman and Middle-earth continent's of Arda???

That seems to have been the idea, at least before the downfall of
Numenor. (Although it's possible that "Middle-earth" would refer to
_any_ continent other than Aman. Also, in some versions of the
mythology, "Arda" referred to the whole Solar System, so make of that
what you will. It's not clear to me what Aman's status was in the
most extreme of those examples.)

Numenor's destruction, of course, is when the world became round and
Aman was removed from the "normal" plane of existence entirely. So at
that point, what had been "Middle-earth" remained a continent (or more
than one?) on the planet and "new lands" (other continents,
presumably, probably including the Americas if you want to do the
Middle-earth/Europe mapping) were made as well.

Steuard Jensen