THE FOURTH

ENGLISH READING BOOK.

PART II.

THE EARTH.

Narration, an account of
a fact or event.
Fiction, a creation of the
fancy in imitation of
the truth.

Encounter, to meet face to
face.

Explore, to search into.

SCIENCE, No. 11.

Department, a division of a subject.

Allied, joined with by some tie.

Mathematics, the sciences that treat of form and number.

Verify, to show to be true.

You have no doubt learned that the earth upon which we live is a large globe. This globe, or sphere, is so large that it would take the fastest steam-ship about three months to sail quite round it.

Being so large, but few persons can know much even of its surface, from personal observation. Yet we may all so learn something, and very much more from the collected reports of others. Thus, Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, Captain Cook, Humboldt, Dr. Livingstone, and hundreds of others, have, at different times, explored regions before unknown; and from them we learn what they saw and found out.

But beside the travellers just named, you

would perhaps remind me of Baron Munchausen and Gulliver, or even Robinson Crusoe, whose accounts have given you so much delight. These works, however, differ greatly from those of real travellers. These record what the writers fancied might be, rather than what actually was; and were intended either to amuse, or, under cover of fanciful narrations, to laugh at some of our human follies.

Now, to be good scholars, we must learn how to distinguish a true account from a mere fiction. This, however, in the matter in hand is not so very difficult; for we seldom depend upon the report of one, but many; and the hardships and dangers that have to be encountered by those who explore new regions are such as deter any but those who are very devoted to true learning from making the attempt; and these are the least likely persons in the world to try to impose falsehoods upon

others.

Our great travellers, then, are generally trustworthy; and in geography we have the substance of what hundreds or thousands of such persons have told about the different parts of the earth.

The facts so taught are sometimes grouped together thus. Those about the natural features of the earth, such as its land and water, its high lands and low lands, its climate and products, its plants and animals, together with the races of people who inhabit it, form what is known as Physical Geography.

Then, if we study the various states or

countries, their forms of government, the industries the people carry on, the cities or towns in which they live, the languages they speak, and the relations they keep up toward other states, we are then studying what is commonly called General, but more properly Political and Commercial Geography.

In addition to these two departments of geography, there is another branch of this subject, that treats of the earth as a whole, and of its relation to the sun and moon and other heavenly bodies. This part of the subject is called Mathematical Geography, and is closely allied to astronomy.

When we told you that the earth was a large sphere, we gave you a fact in mathematical geography. And you can easily understand that your knowledge of this branch of geography will not be based upon your own observation. You could hardly take a single step towards finding out the exact size or shape of the earth, or its distance from the sun or any other heavenly body.

These truths have only been learned after much careful observation and study of several branches of knowledge, known as Mathematics; and hence the name Mathematical Geography.

You must, therefore, be content to take the leading truths of this part of the subject upon trust; and in due time you may perhaps be able to verify the statements for yourself.

We live on the outside of an oblate spheroid, that is, on a body differing from a sphere only by being a little flattened in one direction.

The longest diameter of the earth being 26 miles more than its shortest diameter; the mean length through being 7,912 miles: while its circumference, or measurement round, is 24,856 miles.

The shortest diameter of the earth is called its axis, and upon this it rotates or turns daily, thereby causing the alternations of day and night. We learn .further, that our globe or planet revolves about the sun as a centre in an elliptical orbit, that is, in a path varying but little from a circle, and with its axis in a slanting position; from which facts are mainly produced our varying climate and seasons.

Of the interior mass of the earth we know but little. With regard to its surface, we know that the great ocean waters are collected into its hollows; while its higher solid portions rise into mountains or stretch out into plains, each abounding with its own forms of vegetable and animal life.

Home Exercise.-1. Define geography, spheroid, diameter, circumference, axis, and orbit. 2. Write what you know of each of the persons named in this lesson. 3. Give the three departments of geography, and say of what each treats.

INDUSTRY.

Slothful, given to idleness. Considered, thought over carefully.

Wisdom, knowledge well applied.

Industrious, given to labour.

ETHICS, No. 6.

Excuse, a plea given in place of some duty. Garners, storehouses for grain.

Recreation, that which prepares for duty. Predict, to foretell an event

"I WENT by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; and, lo! it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down."

What the wise and observant king of that far-off eastern land saw some three thousand years ago, may still be seen in this land. Any one who travels through our rural districts would see many and many a trim cottage with its well-kept garden patch, telling plainly the industry and good taste of the inmates; but, in other places he would see also the ground cumbered with weeds, the unhinged door, and patched window; signs of sloth and waste.

Our large towns and cities, too, would tell the same tale, though in a different form. Houses and court-yards that might at least be clean and sweet, if not bright, are, from the same cause, often close, dark, and foul.

We turn again to the words of the wise king: "I saw and considered it well: I looked upon it and received instruction."

Now, we want you to note that this wise king was he whose royal father had taught him