MAGNITUDE OF SUN. AND PLANETS. 



speculations of philosophy, and all visions of poetry, are puerile 

 and ridiculous. 



3. We make excursions into Wales or the Scottish Highlands 

 to enjoy the sublime spectacles of Snowdou and Ben Nevis, or to 

 the Alps, to contemplate the stupendous masses of Mont Blanc and 

 Mont Rosa, or to the Andes, or the Himalaya, to behold the still 

 more enormous peaks of Chimborazo or Kunchinginga. 



Now, the height of the most lofty summit of the highest of 

 these peaks does not attain to six miles. But astronomers have 

 demonstrated that the earth is a globe eight thousand miles in 

 diameter, so that the height of the most lofty mountain is less than 

 the 1300th part of the diameter. 



Let us consider how such mountains should be regarded com- 

 paratively with such a globe. 



Take a common terrestrial globe, for example, 24 inches in 

 diameter. It is evident that, compared with the earth itself, 3 

 inches on such a globe would represent 1000 miles, and conse- 

 quently 18 thousandths or the 55th part of an inch would repre- 

 sent six miles. A mountain six miles high would, therefore, be 

 represented upon the surface of such a globe by a particle of dust, 

 whose diameter would not exceed the 55th part of an inch. 



If the base of a mountain six miles high measured 1000 square 

 miles, and the form of the mountain were nearly pyramidal, its 

 solid dimensions would amount to 2000 cubic miles. Now it will be 

 found by the most simple calculations of arithmetic and geometry 

 that a globe 8000 miles in diameter must consist of above 250000 

 millions of cubic miles. It follows, therefore, that the bulk of the 

 earth must be more than 125 million times greater than the bulk 

 of such a mountain. 



4. The discoveries of astronomers, however, have taught us, 

 that stupendous as the earth is when compared to such standards 

 of magnitude, it is small when compared with other globes which 

 in company with it revolve round the sun, and which like it. 

 according to probabilities which amount to moral certainty, are 

 also inhabited worlds ; and that, compared with the sun itself, to 

 say nothing of still more enormous bodies which have been dis- 

 covered, it shrinks to a mere point. 



Thus the bulk of the planet Saturn is nearly 900 times, and that 

 of Jupiter nearly 1400 times that of the earth. Yet these, com- 

 paratively stupendous as they are, appear to be the theatres of the 

 same physical phenomena, and to play the same part in the crea- 

 tion as the earth.* 



5. When we turn our view to the sun we encounter another 



* See our Tract on "The Planets." 



o 2 10.- 



