lO BROWN : 



tion five hours before it starts. If the message went the 

 other way, it would, by the same process of reasoning, take 

 five hours for the transit. 



Now these considerations are elementary enough ; but see 

 what conies of them if we give our imagination the rein for a 

 moment or two. Suppose our friend at the pole, so often 

 mentioned, should start to warm himself by running round 

 the pole. Whichever way he moved, whether to right or left, 

 he would bring the sun again and again to the meridian before 

 he stopped to take breath ; and, unless he took heedful note 

 of the turns and carefully ran the same number in the oppo- 

 site direction, he would completely upset his record of the day 

 of the month. In fact, by diligent running in the proper 

 direction he might make himself any age he chose. In other 

 words, he could place himself as far back in the past or as far 

 forward in the future as his muscles would carry him. 



Again, if he advanced from the pole southward, say, 

 twenty-eight hundred and one yards and a fraction, and then 

 moved on his parallel, he would make the circuit of the earth 

 in ten miles of walking, and as long as he could cover one- 

 twenty-fourth part of this, or seven hundred and thirty-three 

 yards and one foot per hour in a westerly direction, he would 

 keep the sun on his meridian and prevent the date from 

 changing. The great globe would be to him neither more nor 

 less than a magnificent treadmill. 



We have gone so far in our conceptions and placed our 

 observer in such hitherto impossible places, that we may as 

 well pass over into miracle for a moment, eliminate gravity, 

 station him, without visible means of support, directh' above 

 the pole of the earth, and see what comes of it. 



The atmosphere, which is virtually part of the earth, and 

 whirls around with it, has no influence whatever upon this 

 suspended man, for he is at the neutral axis. He sees the 

 earth revolve beneath him once in twenty-four hours, and 

 points upon it have but a slow motion ; for, as we have seen. 



