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Page 11
THE SUN
How far away from us is the sun? Are we to answer just as we think, or
just as we know? On a fine summer day, when we can see him clearly, it
looks as if a short trip in a balloon might take us to his throne in
the sky, yet we know--because the astronomers tell us so--that he is
more than ninety-one millions of miles distant from our earth.
Ninety-one millions of miles! It is not easy even to imagine this
distance; but let us fancy ourselves in an express-train going sixty
miles an hour without making a single stop. At that flying rate we
could travel from the earth to the sun in one hundred and seventy-one
years,--that is, if we had a road to run on and time to spare for the
journey.
Arriving at the palace of the sun, we might then have some idea of his
size. A learned Greek who lived more than two thousand years ago
thought the sun about as large as the Peloponnesus; if he had lived in
our country, he might have said, "About as large as Massachusetts."
As large as their peninsula! The other Greeks laughed at him for
believing that the shining ball was so vast. How astonished they would
have been--yes, and the wise man too--if they had been told that the
brilliant lord of the day was more than a million times as large as the
whole world!
LESSON XXX
IVORY
How many articles are made of ivory! Here is a polished knife-handle,
and there a strangely-carved paper-cutter. In the same shop may be
found albums and prayer-books with ivory covers; and, not far away,
penholders, curious toys, and parasol-handles, all made of the glossy
white material.
Where ivory is abundant, chairs of state, and even thrones are made of
it; and in Russia, in the palaces of the great, floors inlaid with
ivory help to beautify the grand apartments. One African sultan has a
whole fence of elephants' tusks around his royal residence; the
residence itself is straw-roofed and barbarous enough, both in design
and in structure. Yet imagine that ivory fence!
The elephants slain in Africa and India in the course of a year could
not furnish half the ivory used in the great markets of the world
during that time. Vienna, Paris, London and St. Petersburg keep the
elephant-hunters busy, yet it is impossible for them to satisfy all the
demands made upon them, and the ivory-diggers must be called upon to
add to the supply.
Every spring, when the ice begins to thaw, new mines or deposits of
fossil ivory--a perfect treasure of mammoths' tusks--are discovered in
the marsh-lands of Eastern Siberia. There are no mammoths now--unless
we call elephants by that name; yet their remains have been found upon
both continents. In the year 1799, the perfect skeleton of one of
these animals was found in an ice-bank near the mouth of a Siberian
river. As the vast ice-field thawed, the remains of the huge animal
came to light.
The traders who search for mammoths' tusks around the Arctic coasts of
Asia make every effort to send off, each year, at least fifty thousand
pounds of fossil ivory to the west along the great caravan road. So
great is the demand, however, that this quantity, added to that sent by
the elephant-hunters, is not large enough to make ivory cheap in trade
or in manufacture.
SELECTION XII
WOODMAN, SPARE THAT TREE
Woodman, spare that tree!
Touch not a single bough!
In youth it sheltered me,
And I'll protect it now.
'Twas my forefather's hand
That placed it near his cot:
There, woodman, let it stand;
Thy ax shall harm it not.
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