THE EARTH'S SHAPE 



That is, on the whole, a reasonable answer. But apply 

 the same reasoning to the question of where the waters 

 of the earth in the shape of oceans ought to lie as they 

 cling to the spinning globe. They cling to the globe, 

 not because they are sticky, but because of the attraction 

 which we say is due to gravity the force which makes 

 everything in nature attract every other thing, and 

 which makes everything tend to fall to the earth (and 

 to stay there). They do so because the earth, being so 

 very heavy and bulky in comparison with anything in its 

 neighbourhood, has such an enormous pull. How great 

 that pull is may be dimly gathered from the reflection 

 that though the earth is spinning at the rate of a thou- 

 sand miles an hour, nothing is ever shaken off. The 

 oceans are not shaken off. They cling. But why is it 

 that they are not equally distributed all over the face of 

 the earth ? If a map of the earth be examined, or still 

 better a globe with the oceans and continents correctly 

 drawn on it, it will be found that there is a great mass 

 of land all lying grouped together on one side of the 

 earth, and a great basin of waters on the other. Let 

 the reader imagine himself a thousand miles above the 

 earth, looking down at a point in it about midway 

 between Madeira and the Bermudas. What would he 

 see ? He would see the Atlantic Ocean, but all around it 

 would be grouped great masses of land Europe, Africa, 

 North America, Asia and if it were his first sight of 

 the earth and he knew nothing of its geography, he 

 would be likely to suppose that the earth was nearly all 

 land, with one comparatively small stretch of unfrozen 



30 



