Earth, Sea and Sky, Or, the Hand of God in the Works of Nature

EARTH, SEA, AND SKY;

OR,

THE HAND OF GOD IN THE WORKS OF NATURE.

CHAPTER I.

THE SKY.

THE EARTH-THE MOON-THE SUN-ECLIPSES-THE PLANETS THE PLANETARY SYSTEM-THE FIXED STARS THE VASTNESS OF THE UNIVERSE THE CONNECTIONS OF THE EARTH WITH THE CENTRAL HEAVENS

THE earth is one of many worlds which revolve round the sun as their common centre. It is rather larger than some, but exceedingly smaller than others. If we were situated on one of the nearer ones, we would see it as an ordinary star; but if we were situated on any of the more distant, we could not see it at all. Yet, even regarded as a star, a very little star, it possesses glorious magnificence, and is a world of wonders.

It has an almost globular form-exactly the shape best suited to bask it equably in the sun's rays. It turns continually round on its axis, so as to expose all its surface to the alternation of day and night. It maintains a mean distance of about ninety-five millions of miles from the sun, and enjoys there a happy mildness in the intensity of his light and heat. It travels

at the average rate of sixty-eight thousand miles an hour, and is kept steadily in its path-as also every other planet is by the perfect balance between the force of its motion tending to carry it away into space, and the force of gravitation tending to draw it on to the sun. It lies obliquely to the plane of its path, or with its axis not straight up, but aslant, and so enjoys the delightful changes, the beautiful phenomena, and the powerful influences of the seasons. It makes a very slow and perfectly steady oscillation, called the precession of the equinoxes, occasioning a small change in some of its relations throughout long intervals of time. It measures nearly eight thousand miles in diameter, or nearly twenty-five thousand in circumference. Its bulk and density, as also those of every other world, have an infinitesimal adaptation to the niceties of mutual attraction among the neighbouring orbs. Its surface is a picturesque arrangement of land and water, and of height and hollow. It is curtained all over with an atmosphere of translucent gases, and of many-coloured clouds. And it is ever accompanied with the silvery moon, wheeling round and round it, as an eloquent writer has remarked, "like a playful lamb frisking round its mother."

All these astral wonders of the earth, and many more, are known to all persons of ordinary intelligence, or may readily be learned from elementary books on astronomy. But some others are either seldom adverted to, or very slightly understood. The earth occupies a place of perfect stability in the solar system, yet seems to have undergone great changes in size, density, and structure. It probably was created at the same time as the sun and the neighbouring worlds,

but, nevertheless, does not appear to consist of quite the same materials. It seems in early times to have had different relations to them, than in modern epochs, in regard to light, and perhaps also in regard to other important things; and it possibly has passed through stages and cycles of existence peculiar to itself. The inclination of its axis to the plane of its path, may formerly have been much different from what it is at present; and, if so, its seasons and climates must have been correspondingly different. The structure or condition of its interior, from within a few miles of the surface, down to the very centre, is a matter which every inquisitive person would like exceedingly to know, but one on which we have no information, and scarcely one good conjecture. The constitution of the atmosphere has seemingly been unaltered from the creation of man, but probably underwent, in previous epochs, very great and wonderful changes. The earth's surface, throughout all its earlier periods, appears to have been totally unfit for the residence of any such orders of organised creatures as now constitute its principal inhabitants, yet possibly-though we cannot say probably was then peopled by a race or races of intelligent beings of too ethereal or soft-bodied a nature to have left any perceptible traces of their existence. The future condition of crust and climate, of land and atmosphere, in the same way, may possibly be shaped by the all-wise Creator into suitableness for the abode of new and higher races, after the cycle of human things shall be complete. And at any rate, throughout all the epoch of man's existence, the earth possesses a most exalted character, and exhibits most wondrous blendings of physical and moral things, and

sustains most glorious relations to far distant regions of the universe. But some of these thoughts belong partly to other divisions of the wonders of nature, and may come in our way in subsequent chapters.

The orb nearest the earth is the moon. This is the most gorgeous object in the nocturnal heavens. It was set by the Creator to rule our world's night, as the sun was set to rule the day; it figures in ancient polytheistic idolatry as the "Queen of heaven;" and it has been sung in fervent strains and picturesque imagery by poets of all climes and ages. But it is important to the earth alone, and acquires all its importance from its comparative nearness and its relative position. Eyes like man's could not see it from any other planet. It is little more than one-fourth as thick as the earth, and only one forty-ninth as bulky; and it has an average distance from us of about 237,000 miles. It travels round the earth in the period between one new moon and another, and completes a turn on its own axis in exactly the same period. The dark or night part of it is all toward us at change of moon, and therefore is wholly invisible; the sunlit or day part of it is all toward us at full moon, and therefore has the appearance of an entire orb; and a constantly varying proportion of the two parts is toward us throughout the intermediate periods, and therefore exhibits all the phenomena of waxing and waning.

The half which we see at any full moon, is the only half ever exposed to our view; and that half enjoys an earth-shine of far greater brilliance than the moonshine is to us. The faint light which we sometimes see revealing the whole disc at times between new moon and

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Earth, Sea and Sky, Or, the Hand of God in the Works of Nature, Volume 1