BIQ AND LITTLE. 183 



in the British Isles. Tlie Tlnilocl States are 

 lar(,'er still — r()ii<^lily spoakiiifj^, iibout thirty times 

 as big as Britain, or sixty times as big as Kng- 

 hind and Wales. Yet the United States are 

 only a fraction of the land surface of all America, 

 and America itself but a fraction of the land sur- 

 face of the entire globe. As to the oceans, thej'' 

 are far bigger than even the continents. Scarcely 

 more than one-quarter of the world consists of 

 dryland; nearly three-quarters consist of water. 

 Against some small jjortion of this we are able to 

 measure ourselves with rough accuracy. The 

 route from England to America, on a lirst-class 

 passenger-steamer, requires on the average an 

 eight days' voyage. During all those eight days 

 and nights, whether we sit on deck or lie asleep 

 in our berths, the vessel is moving steadily for- 

 ward through the rushing water at the rate of 

 seventeen or eighteen miles an hour. Everj' 

 morning we start a[)parently in the middle of the 

 ocean ; every night we find ourselves, so far as 

 the eye can judge, in exactly the same spot as 

 where we started. But all the time we are 

 steadily progressing across that vast and trackless 

 waste of waters. Nothing else perhaps can ever 

 give one such a vivid idea of the expanse of our 

 globe as such a long ocean voyage. Yet from 

 Queenstown to New York is but a tiny fraction of 

 the distance round the whole world, scarcely more 



