When the sun is in the horizon of any place (whether in Japan or
elsewhere), he is the length of half the earth's diameter more distant
from that place than in his meridian at noon. As the earth's
semi-diameter is nearly 4,000 miles, the sun must be considerably more
than 3,000 miles nearer at noon than at his rising, there being no
valley even the hundredth part of 1,000 miles deep.