Answer.—A little more than half of the earth’s surface is illuminated by the sun at any given moment. There is a very slight extension of the area of illumination for the reason you mention, and beyond that an extension of from thirty-five to forty miles all around on account of horizontal refraction. If you put a silver coin into a bowl, then stand back until the edge barely hides the coin, and while you keep this same position another person fills the bowl with water, you will see the bottom of it seem to lift until the coin comes into sight. This is because the rays of light reflected from the bottom of the bowl are bent out of a straight line in passing through the water and out into the thinner medium, the air. This is called refraction. The rays of light from the setting sun are bent downward in a similar manner as they enter the earth’s atmosphere, and so the sun appears to be above the horizon a little more than two minutes after it has actually dropped below the true horizon. A difference of two minutes in time corresponds to a distance of thirty miles on the earth’s surface.
THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT.
Sandusky, Iowa,
1. Does Parliament serve the same purposes in Great Britain as Congress does in the United States? 2. How is Parliament constituted?
A. C. Starin.
Answer.—Like the Congress of the United States, the British Parliament legislates for the whole nation. But, in addition to this, it takes the place of the separate legislative bodies that used to exist in Scotland and Ireland, and makes local laws for England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, such as in this country can only be made by State Legislatures. As regards the Dominion of Canada, the Australian Provinces, and other colonial possessions, with legislatures of their own, the powers of Parliament are somewhat analogous to those of Congress over the States. 2. Parliament is composed of two houses, the Lords and the Commons. The House of Lords consists of peers who hold their seats either by virtue of hereditary right; by creation of the sovereign (who is unrestricted in his power of creating peers); by virtue of office, as the English bishops; by election for life, as the Irish peers; or by election for duration of Parliament, as the Scottish peers. This House, in the session of 1882, consisted of 516 members, of whom 5 were peers of the blood royal, 2 were archbishops, 22 were dukes, 19 marquises, 117 earls, 26 viscounts, 24 bishops, 257 barons, 16 Scottish peers, and 28 Irish representative peers. More than two-thirds of these hereditary peerages have been created within the present century—over one-third of them by the present sovereign, which marks one of the strongest factors of the power of the Crown. In the same year the Commons consisted of 639 members, classified as “knights of the shire,” or representatives of counties; “citizens,” or representatives of cities; and “burgesses,” or representatives of boroughs—all of whom hold office by election. The qualifications of electors were given in an article published in Our Curiosity Shop a few months ago. The total number of these electors in 1882 was 3,134,801.
REMOVAL OF ARTHUR FROM CUSTOM HOUSE.
Milwaukee, Wis.