160 EXCURSIONS ROUNI> LONDON. 



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globes, which shine with such lustre, and at 

 such an immense distance from us ? What 

 reflections does the view of this magnificent 

 spectacle give birth to in the mind ! It i* 

 particular!} 7 , by contemplating it, that we 

 become sensible of the advantages resulting 

 from the periodical return of light and dark- 

 ness. 



Doubtless, the mechanism of our globe 

 might have been such as to have produced 

 continual day ; and what would have happen - 

 ed, if the earth, like the moon, had always 

 presented the same hemisphere to the sun. 

 Our globe might also have had a slow rota- 

 tory motion on its own axis, instead of its 

 present rapid one, the result of which 

 would have been in a proportionate proion- 

 gat ion. 



Let us, for a moment, suppose that our 

 days of twelve hours (I do not reckon the 

 night), were transformed into days of a 

 fourth part of a century. How many mea 

 would die without having witnessed the ter- 

 mination of a single day, and consequently. 



