12 HlSTuaV OF 



globe which rises between tnem. The ships, in this instance, 

 may be resembled to two men who approach each other on the 

 opposite sides of a hill ; their heads will first be seen, and gra. 

 dually as they come nearer they will come entirely into view.* 



However, though the earth's figure is said to be spherical, w e 

 ought only to conceive it as being nearly so. It has been found 

 in the last age to be rather flatted at both poles, so that its form 

 is commonly resembled to that of a turnip. The cause of this 

 swelling of the equator is ascribed to the greater rapidity of the 

 motion with which the parts of the earth are there carried round ; 

 and which, consequently, endeavouring to fly off, act in opposi- 

 tion to central attraction. The twirling of a mop may serve as 

 a homely illustration; which, as every one has seen, spreads 

 and grows broader in the middle as it continues to be turned 

 round. 



As the earth receives light and motion from the sun, so it 

 derives much of its warmth and power of vegetation from the 

 same beneficent source. However, the diflferent parts of the 

 globe participate of these advantages in very diflferent propor- 

 tions, and accordingly put on very different appearances ; a polar 

 prospect, and a landscape at the equator, are as opposite in tlieir 

 appearances as in their situation. 



The polar regions, that receive the solar beams in a very ob- 

 lique direction, and continue for one half of the year in night, 

 receive but few of the genial comforts which other parts of the 

 world enjoy. Nothing can be more mournful or hideous than 

 the picture which travellers present of those wretched regions. 

 The ground,' which is rocky and barren, rears itself in every 

 place in lofty mountains and inaccessible cliffs, and meets the 

 mariner's eye at even forty leagues from shore. These precipices, 

 frightful in themselves, receive an additional horror from being 

 constantly covered with ice and snow, which daUy seem to ac- 

 cumulate, and fill all the valleys Avith increasing desolation. The 

 few rocks and cliff's that are bare of snow, look at a distance of 



* other proofs of the earth's rotundity might be adduced, the most practi. 

 cal of which is that derived from the many voyages performed around it- 

 navigators pursuing a due course east or west having returned to the samo 

 place whence tliey set out, which could not have happened were the earth a 

 plane. 



1 Crantz's History of Greenland, p. 3. 



