THE GIDDY GLOBE
Men of Science, who delight in applying harsh terms to things that
cannot talk back, have called this Giddy Globe an Oblate Spheroid.
Francis Bacon called it a Bubble; Shakespeare, an Oyster; Rossetti, a
Midge; and W. S. Gilbert addresses it familiarly as a Ball--
_Roll on, thou ball, roll on!_
_Through pathless realms of Space_
_Roll on!_
_What though I'm in a sorry case?_
_What though I cannot meet my bills?_
_What though I suffer toothache's ills?_
_What though I swallow countless pills?_
_Never you mind_
_Roll on!_
(_It rolls on._)
But these people belong to a privileged class that is encouraged (even
paid) to distort the language, and they must not be taken too
literally.
The Giddy Globe is really quite large, not to say obese.
Her waist measurement is no less than twenty-five thousand miles. In the
hope of reducing it, the earth takes unceasing and violent exercise, but
though she spins round on one toe at the rate of a thousand miles an
hour every day, and round the sun once a year, she does not succeed in
taking off a single mile or keeping even comfortably warm all over.
No wonder the globe is giddy!
_QUESTIONS_
_Explain the Nebular Hypothesis._
_State briefly the electromagnetical constituents of the Aurora
Borealis, and explain their relation to the Hertzian Waves._
_Define the difference between the Hertzian Wave and the Marcel Wave._