II 



CHARTING THE UNIVERSE 



TO us its inhabitants our earth seems a very big 

 place. The man who has been "round the 

 world" has taken a journey that is to be remembered 

 for a life time. The fastest express train requires 

 four days to cross our big continent. The fastest 

 ship takes five days to cross the narrowest part of 

 the Atlantic. 



Our modern air ships fly a mile a minute sixty 

 miles an hour. Suppose an airship were so perfected 

 that it could maintain its flight uninterruptedly day 

 after day without stopping for repairs or fuel. Such 

 a flying machine, going a mile a minute, would carry 

 its passengers clear around the world at the equator 

 in less than seventeen days. 



That would be a feat worth talking about, the 

 circumnavigation of our big world in little more than 

 half a month. 



But now suppose that the airmen, flying thus at 

 uniform speed of a mile a minute, could start straight 

 up into the air and could continue in a bee line on a 

 Jules Verne voyage off into space. How long would it 

 take him, think you, to get to our neighbor Mars? 

 Why, a matter of ninety odd years. 



That would be a tiresome voyage, not to speak 



29 



