The earth is that body in the solar system which most of my readers now
reside upon, and which some of them, I regret to say, modestly desire to
own and control, forgetting that the earth is the Lord's, and the
fullness thereof. Some men do not care who owns the earth so long as
they get the fullness.
The earth is 500,000,000 years of age, according to Prof. Proctor, but
she doesn't look it to me. The Duke of Argyll maintains that she is
10,000,000 years old last August, but what does an ordinary duke know
about these things? So far as I am concerned I will put Proctor's memory
against that of any low-priced duke that I have ever seen.
Newton claimed that the earth would gradually dry up and become porous,
and that water would at last become a curiosity. Many believe this and
are rapidly preparing their systems by a rigid course of treatment, so
that they can live for years without the use of water internally or
externally.
Other scientists who have sat up nights to monkey with the solar system,
and thereby shattered their nervous systems, claim that the earth is
getting top-heavy at the north pole, and that one of these days while we
are thinking of something else, the great weight of accummulated ice,
snow, and the vast accummulation of second-hand arctic relief
expeditions, will jerk the earth out of its present position with so
much spontaneity, and in such an extremely forthwith manner, that many
people will be permanently strabismused and much bric-a-brac will be for
sale at a great sacrifice. This may or may not be true. I have not been
up in the arctic regions to investigate its truth or falsity, though
there seems to be a growing sentiment throughout the country in favor of
my going. A great many people during the past year have written me and
given me their consent.
If I could take about twenty good, picked men, and go up there for the
summer, instead of bringing back twenty picked men, I wouldn't mind the
trip, and I feel that we really ought to have a larger colony on ice in
that region than we now have.
The earth is composed of land and water. Some of the water has large
chunks of ice in it. The earth revolves around its own axle once in
twenty-four hours, though it seems to revolve faster than that, and to
wobble a good deal during the holidays. Nothing tickles the earth more
than to confuse a man when he is coming home late at night, and then to
rise up suddenly and hit him in the back with a town lot. People who
think there is no fun or relaxation among the heavenly bodies certainly
have not studied their habits. Even the moon is a humorist.
A friend of mine, who was returning late at night from a regular meeting
of the Society for the Amelioration of the Hot Scotch, said that the
earth rose up suddenly in front of him, and hit him with a right of way,
and as he was about to rise up again he was stunned by a terrific blow
between the shoulder blades with an old land grant that he thought had
lapsed years ago. When he staggered to his feet he found that the moon,
in order to add to his confusion, had gone down in front of him, and
risen again behind him, with her thumb on her nose.
So I say, without fear of successful contradiction, that if you do not
think that planets and orbs and one thing and another have fun on the
quiet you are grossly ignorant of their habits.
The earth is about half way between Mercury and Saturn in the matter of
density. Mercury is of about the specific gravity of iron, while that of
Saturn corresponds with that of cork in the matter of density and
specific gravity. The earth, of course, does not compare with Mercury in
the matter of solidity, yet it is amply firm for all practical purposes.
A negro who fell out of the tower of a twelve-story building while
trying to clean the upper window by drinking a quart of alcohol and then
breathing hard on the glass, says that he regards the earth as perfectly
solid, and safe to do business on for years to come. He claims that
those who maintain that the earth's crust is only 2,500 miles in
thickness have not thoroughly tested the matter by a system of practical
experiments.
The poles of the earth are merely imaginary. I hate to print this
statement in a large paper in such a way as to injure the reputation of
great writers on this subject who still cling to the theory that the
earth revolves upon large poles, and that the aurora borealis is but
the reflection from a hot box at the north pole, but I am here to tell
the truth, and if my readers think it disagreeable to read the truth,
what must be my anguish who have to tell it? The mean diameter of the
earth is 7,916 English statute miles, but the actual diameter from pole
to pole is a still meaner diameter, being 7,899 miles, while the
equatorial diameter is 7,925-1/2 miles.
The long and patient struggle of our earnest and tireless geographers
and savants in past years in order to obtain these figures and have them
exact, few can fully realize. The long and thankless job of measuring
the diameter of the earth, no matter what the weather might be, away
from home and friends, footsore and weary, still plodding on, fatigued
but determined to know the mean diameter of the earth, even if it took a
leg, measuring on for thousands of weary miles, and getting farther and
farther away from home, and then forgetting, perhaps, how many thousand
miles they had gone, and being compelled to go back and measure it over
again while their noses got red and their fingers were benumbed. These,
fellow-citizens, are a few of the sacrifices that science has made on
our behalf in order that we may not grow up in ignorance. These are a
few of the blessed privileges which, along with life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness, are ours--ours to anticipate, ours to
participate, ours to precipitate.
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