A Short History of the World

three thousand years. What happened before that time was a matter of legend and speculation. Over a large part of the civilized world it was believed and tau

ious teachers, and it is universally recognized that the universe in which we live has to all appearances existed for an enormous period of time and possibly for endless time. Of course there may be deception in these appearanc

supposed to be flat, and various ideas which now seem fantastic were entertained about its relations to the sky and the stars and planets. We know now that it rotates upon its axis (which is about 24 miles shorter than its equatorial diameter) every twenty-four hours, and that

PIRAL CLOUD

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and sixty-seven millions of miles; and beyond the circle of the earth and disregarding a belt of numerous smaller bodies, the planetoids, there are Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune at mean distances of 141, 483, 886, 1,7

ULA SEE

h, through millions of yea

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ld be the two inner planets, Mercury and Venus, at distances of one hundred and twenty-five and two hundred and fifty yards from the sun. All round and about these bodies there would be emptiness until you came to Mars, a hundred and seventy-five feet beyond the earth; Jupiter nearly a mile away, a

e some conception of the immense emptiness

etrate much more than three miles down into the 4,000 miles that separate us from the centre of our globe, and it does

miles. Men have reached to seven miles up in balloons, but at a cost of great suffering. No bird can fly so high as fi