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70. What are plains covered with sand called?

A. They are denominated deserts; some are also covered with stones and gravel. Deserts are generally destitute of

water.

71. Which are the largest deserts in the world?

A. The great African desert, and the desert of Cobi, in Asia.

72. With what is the African desert interspersed ?

A. Various fertile spots that are scattered here and there over the surface, like islands in the ocean.

73. What are these called?

A. They are called Oases: they are all inhabited, and serve as resting places for travellers.

The Great Desert is frequently crossed by parties of travellers, with camels; these are called caravans; both men and beasts often suffer greatly from want of water, and sometimes perish from thirst. The picture represents a small caravan crossing the desert, one of the people of which appears to have just expired.

74. What are Caves or Caverns ?

A. They are openings in the earth, often wonderful on ccount of their great size and extent.

One of the most remarkable is Fingal's Cave, in Staffa, an island on the west coast of Scotland. Its sides are formed with the regularity of walls of hewn stone. It is 227 feet in length, and 42 feet wide, and presents a most striking example

of the sublime and beautiful creations with which God has adorned the

world.

75. What are public roads?

A. Pathways used for travelling from place to place.

76. Are roads useful to mankind?

A. They are highly useful, for without them the people in different parts of the same country would not know each other.

77. What is a rail-road?

A. An improved kind of road, now much used in the United States, and also in some parts of Europe.

more.

The cars or carriages used on them, are drawn by steam locomotive engines, at the rate of 12 or 15 miles an hour, and sometimes even Vast numbers of people, and great quantities of merchandise, are conveyed by them from place to place, in a manner much more convenient than by the old method of travelling.

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PRODUCTIONS OF THE EARTH.

78. What are the productions of the earth?

A. They are either vegetable, animal, or mineral.

79. What are vegetable productions?

A. They are all things that grow out of the ground, as rees, plants, grain, fruits and flowers.

80. What are the vegetable productions most useful to mankind? A. Wheat, corn, rye, rice, potatoes, bread-fruit, &c. 81. What are the chief classes of the animal kingdom? A. They are beasts, birds, fishes, reptiles, and insects. 82. What are minerals?

A. They consist of substances of various kinds, that are dug out of the earth.

83. What are the principal classes of minerals?

A. Four: the metallic, the inflammable, precious stones, and building stones.

84. What are the most important metallic minerals?

A. They are gold, silver, iron, copper, and lead.

85. What are the principal inflammable minerals?

A. They are pitcoal, peat, sulphur, bitumen, and asphaltum.

86. What are the most valuable precious stones?

A. Diamonds, sapphires, rubies, and emeralds.

South America, from which the water has been nearly all pumped out by the machine on the right hand of the picture, and negro slaves are examining the earth for diamonds.

87. What are some of the prin cipal building-stones?

A. They are granite, limestone, marble, chalk, slate, and sandstone.

Mineral springs, both hot and cold, occur in many parts of the earth The most remarkable are the Geysers, or Spouting springs of Iceland, which throw up volumes of hot water, with a noise like cannon to the height of 90 or 100 feet.

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88. What is the earth?

A. It is one of the planets.

89. What are the planets?

A. Immense bodies like the earth, which revolve round the

sun.

90. What is the shape or form of the earth? A. It is round, like a ball or orange.

91. By what other names is the earth known?

A. It is also called the World, the Globe, and the Sphere.

92. How many motions has the earth, and what are they?

A. Two; the daily, and the yearly.

93. What is the daily motion of the earth?

A. That in which it turns round every twenty-four hours. 94. What is the yearly motion of the earth?

A. That in which it goes round the sun once every year.

95. What takes place during the earth's yearly motion?

A. A change of seasons.

96. What is a change of seasons?

A. The change from winter to spring, from spring to summer, from summer to autumn, and from autumn to winter again.

97. What is the effect of the earth's daily motion?

A. It produces the change from day to night.

98. If the earth did not turn round on its axis, what effect would be produced?

A. On one side there would be constant day, and the people would be parched up by the heat of the sun.

99. What then would be the condition of the people living on the other side?

A. They would have constant night, and would be frozen with cold.

100. What do these things teach us?

A. That the works of the Almighty are directed by infinite wisdom and goodness.

101. What is the axis of the earth?

A. It is an imaginary line passing through its centre from North to South.

102. What are the poles of the earth?

A. The ends of the axis.

103. How many poles are there?

A. Two; the North, and the South Pole.

104. Where are the poles situated?

A. The North Pole is the north point of the earth's axis, and the South Pole is the south point.

Point out on Map of the World, No. 1. of the Atlas, the North Pole and the South Pole. You will perceive that this map consists of the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, that is, a map of both sides of the earth presented to view at once; and although the words North Pole and South Pole are written twice, yet there is but one North Pole and one South Pole.

105. How far distant are the poles situated from each other? A. One hundred and eighty degrees.

106. How many miles is that?

A. About 12,500 miles, which is half round the world.

107. What is the size or bulk of the earth?