DIZZY DISTANCES.
The other day, one of the school-children said to a chum, "The Little Schoolma'am told us this morning that some parts of the ocean are more than four miles deep!"
That's easy to say, thought I, but try to think it, my dear! Fix on a place four miles away from you, and then imagine every bit of that distance stretching down under you, instead of straight before you. Perhaps in this way you may gain an idea of the depth of the ocean; but just consider the height of the air—which, I'm told, is a sort of envelope about the earth—more than nine times the depth of the ocean! Yet, what a wee bit of a[Page 567] way toward the moon would those thirty-six miles take us! And from the earth to the moon is only a very little step on the long way to the sun.
Oh dear! Let's stop and take a breath! Why did I begin talking of such dizzy distances?