28 THE FAIRY-LAND OF SCIENCE. 
at last stands fully in the blaze of the light. Just this 
was happening to our spot of the world as you lay in 
bed and saw the light appear ; and we have to learn 
to-day what those beams are which fall upon us 
and what they do for us. 
First we must learn something about the sun itself, 
since it is the starting-place of all the sunbeams. If 
the sun were a dark mass instead of a fiery one-we 
should have none of these bright cheering messengers, 
and though we were turned face to face with him every 
day we should remain in one cold eternal night. Now 
you will remember we mentioned in the last lecture 
that it is heat which shakes apart the little atoms of 
water and makes them float up in the air to fall again 
as rain ; and that if the day is cold they fall as snow, 
and all the water is turned into ice. But if the sun 
were altogether dark, think how bitterly cold it would 
be ; far colder than the most wintry weather ever 
known, because in the bitterest night some warmth 
comes out of the earth, where it has been stored from 
the sunlight which fell during the day. But if we 
never received any warmth at all, no water would 
ever rise up into the sky, no rain ever fall, no rivers 
flow, and consequently no plants could grow and no 
animals live. All water would be in the form of snow 
and ice, and the earth would be one great frozen mass 
with nothing moving upon it. 
So you see it becomes very interesting for us to learn 
what the sun is, and how he sends us his beams. 
How far away from us do you think he is ? On a 
fine summer's day when we can see him clearly, it 
looks as if we had only to get into a balloon and 
