PART SECOND. Q. WHAT is Latitude? A. Distance from the equator, either north or south. Q. What is Longitude? A. Distance from any established meridian, either east or west. Q. What are Meridians? A. Circles extending round the earth, north and south, through the Poles. Q. What are Parallels of latitude? A. Circles extending east and west, round the earth, parallel to the equator. Q. What are Circles? A. Imaginary lines drawn round the earth. Q. By what different names are they called? A. Equator, Tropics, Polar Circles, Parallels, and Meridians. Q. What are Great Circles, and why are they so called? A. The Equator and Meridians are great circles, and are so called because they are greater in extent than the other circles. They divide the earth into two equal parts. Q. What are Tropics? A. Circles drawn round the earth parallel to the equator 231 from it. Q. What is the tropic north of the equator called? Q. What is the tropic south of the equator called? Q. What are Polar Circles? A. Circles passing round the earth 231° from each pole.. Q. What are their names? A. The circle round the north pole is called the Arctic Circle; that round the south pole, the Antarctic. Q. How are latitude and longitude reckoned? X A. By degrees, minutes, and seconds. Q. How is latitude expressed? A. By figures on the sides of the map. A. By figures on the equator, or at the top or the bottom of the map. Q. What are the divisions of latitude? A. Two: north and south. Q. What are the divisions of longitude? A. Two: east and west. Q. How may it be known whether the longitude of a place is east or west? A. If the figures increase from left to right, the longitude is east; if from right to left, the longitude is west. Q. How may it be known whether the latitude of a place is north or south? A. If the figures increase upward, the latitude is north; if downward, the latitude is south. How many degrees round the earth? A. 360. Q. What is a Degree? A. Sixty geographical miles. Q. What is a Minute? A. One geographical mile. Q. How are they expressed? A. 40° 20', (forty degrees and twenty minutes.) MAP OF THE WORLD. How many degrees from the equator to either pole? How many from pole to pole? In what direction do parallels of latitude run? In what direction do meridians run? What is the greatest latitude a place can have? Where has a place no longitude? Where has a place no latitude? Q. Are degrees of longitude equal in length? A. They are not. They decrease from the equator to the poles. At the poles there is no longitude. At the equator a degree of longitude is equal in length to a degree of latitude. Q. From what meridian do most nations reckon longitude? A. From the capital of their own country. The French reckon from the meridian of Paris. The English from the meridian of Greenwich. The figures on the top of our maps express the longitude from the meridian of Greenwich. Those on the bottom, from Washington. What degree of latitude runs through the island of Cuba? What degree of longitude runs through the island of Hayti? What degree of latitude runs through Newfoundland? Madagascar? The isthinus of Suez ? What degree of longitude runs through Cuba? Cairo? Cape of Good Hope? Terra del Fuego? What degree of latitude runs through the city of Mexico? Pekin? New-York? Q. What are Zones? A. Belts or girdles. How many zones are there? A. Five: one Torrid, two Temperate, and two Frigid Zones. Q. What part of the earth's surface does the torrid zone embrace? A. That part which lies between the two tropics, How wide is this zone? Q. How many seasons in it? A. Two: the wet and the dry. The wet season is called winter, and the dry season summer. The climate is very hot, and the trees are always green. Q. What does Torrid mean? A. Burning. Is Cuba in the Torrid zone? Is the Cape of Good Hope? Why not? Q. What parts of the earth's surface do the Temperate zoneз embrace? A. Those parts which lie between the Tropics and the Polar circles. Q. How many seasons in the Temperate zones? A. Four Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. How wide are the Temperate zones? Q. What parts of the earth's surface do the Frigid zones embrace? A. Those parts which lie between the polar circles and the poles. They are called the North and South Frigid zones. Q. How many seasons have the Frigid zones? A. Two: Summer and Winter. The winters are long and very cold; the summers are short and warm. In what zone are the United States? What countries in South America are in the South-Temperate zone? In Africa is there more land in the North or in the SouthTemperate zone ? In what two zones is Australia? Greenland? Madagascar? Formosa? In what zone is Borneo? New-Zealand? Sumatra Spitzbergen? Niphon? Newfoundland? What land on the Eastern Hemisphere in the South-Frigid zone? On the Western ? Q. By whom was America discovered, and when? A. Christopher Columbus, a native of Genoa, 1492 A. A vast wilderness inhabited by various tribes of Indians. How is North America bounded? Q. When and by whom was it first explored? A. In 1497, by John Cabot. Q. From what country did the first settlers of the United States principally come? A. Great Britain. Q. What were the United States originally called? Q. When was the name change? A. July 4th, 1776, they declared themselves independent of Great Britain, and were called "THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA." Q. When and where was the first battle of the Revolution fought? A. April 19th, 1775, at Lexington, Massachusetts. Q. How long did the war last? A. Until January 20th, 1783, when Great Britain acknowledged the United States to be free, sovereign, and independent. Q. What form of government was established? A. Republican. Several separate republics united in one, are called a Federal Republic. Q. Of how many branches does the government of the United States consist? |