To the smooth surface of a sphere of glass;

Or as a fly upon the convex dome

Of a sublime, stupendous edifice.”

It is not so easy as some imagine, says a German philosopher and divine, to determine exactly the size of the earth. It is true, there is but one longitude; but there are two latitudes, the north and the south. Both of these begin at the equator; the one extends northward, the other southward, as far as the arctic and antarctic poles. But, no one has yet been able to reach either pole. The mountains of ice in Greenland and the Northern Sea, have always obstructed the passage to the north pole: and immense fields, mountains, and islands of ice, have rendered the passage to the south pole impossible. Thanks, however, to the geometricians, we can at present know very nearly the size of our globe. According to the most exact calculations, the surface of the earth is 199,512,595 square miles. The seas and unknown parts of the earth, by a measurement of the best maps, contain 160,522,026 square miles. The inhabited parts contain about 38,990,559 square miles, in the following proportion: Europe—4,456,065; Asia—10,768,823; Africa—9,654,807; America—14,110,874: Hence it appears that scarcely one-third of the globe is habitable. It has been calculated, that there might be at least three thousand millions of men upon the earth at once: but in reality there are no more than about a thousand and eighty millions: of which there are, in Asia—650 millions; in Africa—150; in America—150; in Europe—130.

The path traversed by the earth, which, in astronomical language, is called its orbit, is the apparent path of the sun: it is called the ecliptic, because eclipses, both solar and lunar, always happen in this circle—also via solis, or the sun’s path, because the sun never departs from it; and, therefore, at any time to denote the sun’s place in the heavens, astronomers have divided the whole circle of the earth’s motion in 360 equal parts, which they term degrees, and every thirty of these a sign, of which there are twelve. In this circle the sun advances nearly one degree every twenty-four hours, and thirty degrees every month; thus passing through the whole 360 degrees in a year. The signs are called by different names, and, with regard to their situations and corresponding seasons and months, they stand in the following order:

Northern Signs; so denominated as being north of the Equator.
Spring. Aries ♈, the Ram, part of March and April.
Taurus ♉, the Bull, April and May.
Gemini ♊, the Twins, May and June.
Summer. Cancer ♋, the Crab, June and July.
Leo ♌, the Lion, July and August.
Virgo ♍, the Virgin, August and September.
Southern Signs; so called as being south of the Equator.
Autumn. Libra ♎, the Balance, September and October.
Scorpio ♏, the Scorpion, October and November.
Sagittarius ♐, the Archer, November and December.
Winter. Capricornus ♑, the Goat, December and January.
Aquarius ♒, the Water-bearer, January and February.
Pisces ♓, the Fishes, February and March.

The order of the signs is thus poetically described by Dr. Watts.

“The Ram, the Bull, the heavenly Twins,