THE VISIBLE CREATION. 173 



The distance of tlie earth from the sun is about 12,000 diameters 

 of the earth, or, if we proceed in the other way, multiplying the 

 last unit, we shall find it to be 107 diameters of the sun, vast as is 

 that body in extent. To travel this distance at the rate of thirty 

 miles an hour, going on continually, would occupy three hundred 

 and sixty two years and seven months ; and merely to count it at 

 at the rate already mentioned, that of two per second for eight 

 hours of every day, would fully occupy four and a half years ; 

 and yet more than three times this distance the earth travels every 

 year. To turn around but once in a year requires but a very slow 

 angular motion. Imagine the hand of a dial-plate to turn around 

 only once in a year, how large the dial-plate must be in order that we 

 might see the motion at all ; yet in completing its circuit the earth 

 travels at the rate of nineteen miles per second ; or, while I de- 

 liberately say to you, it moves, we are borne nineteen miles. This 

 result cannot be in error by more than its two hundred and thirty- 

 pecond part. When nearest to the sun, which is about the last of 

 December, we travel about three-tenths of a mile per second faster 

 than this, and about the first of July three-tenths of a mile slower. 

 Even this excess of velocity is fearful. Who could think of being 

 conveyed, mechanically, over the surface of the earth at the rate of 

 three-tenths of a mile per second. 



We are now compelled again to reduce our scale, and, instead of one, 

 one hundred thousand miles to the foot, make use of one, two hundred 

 millions of miles to a foot; and thus the sun, though magnificent in 

 comparison with the earth, shrinks down and becomes no larger 

 than the head of a pin. The orbit of the earth is represented by a 

 white curve, to which the rod now points. Here we have the dis- 

 turbed regions of the smaller planets, and there we have portions of 

 that of Uranus and the most remote of the known planets, Neptune. 

 This long and complete curve is the orbit of Halley's comet. ^ The 

 distance of the earth from the sun being now taken as our unit, the 

 distance of Neptune will be thirty times that, or thirty times ninety- 

 five million miles. Of course, to travel it at thirty miles per day 

 continuously would occupy about ten thousand eight hundred and 

 seventy-five years. Five distances of the earth from the sun from 

 the place of Neptune would carry you to the end of the orbit of Hal- 

 ley's comet. The distance from this, again, to the nearest star is, we 

 had almost said, a void of immense extent compared, with that 

 which we have already had to do. It is scarcely worth while to re- 

 gard miles at all in speaking of the distance of a star ; the number 

 becomes so large that we cannot grasp it. We may, however^ obtain 

 a speaking illustration of the enormous distance of the nearest of the 

 fixed stars by ascertaining what must represent it in comparison with 

 the small globe which I hold in my hand, which has a diameter of 

 three inches. We must despair any more of illustrating distances so 

 vast by any picture, however large. We are not about to deal in mag- 

 nificent oriental fiction, but with ascertained facts. Let this globe rep- 

 resent the earth ; then one hundred and seventeen thousand five hun- 

 dred miles will represent the distance of the nearest fixed star. 



It is useless, almost^ to state how long it would take to count 



