"If you are not very tired, sister," said Harry coaxingly, "I should
like to know how large it is. Is it as large as the earth?"
[Illustration]
"Ever so much larger," replied Mary. "It is so large that if it were
cut up into a million parts, each part would be larger than the earth.
If we could weigh the sun in a pair of giant scales, it would take over
three hundred thousand globes as heavy as the earth to make the scales
even. If the sun were hollowed out, and the earth placed in the center,
there would be room for the moon as well. Now the moon is thousands of
miles from the earth, and yet the edge of the sun would be thousands of
miles from the moon, as you will see in the picture. If a tunnel could
be made through the center of the sun, and a train started going at the
rate of a mile a minute, it would take six hundred days for the train
to reach the other side of the tunnel. If this same train went around
the edge of the sun it would take five years. A train going around the
earth would take seventeen days to complete the journey."
"But suppose we went around the sun in a big steamer, like the one Uncle
Robert came over in; how long would that take?" asked Harry curiously.
"Only fifteen years," said his sister, laughing. "If you had started when
you were a little baby you would still have five more years to travel
before you would get back again to the starting-point."
"Then the sun must be very large," said Harry thoughtfully. "Let us call
it GIANT SUN. Has it always been as large as it is now?"