contains nearly 200,000,000 of square miles. Now were a person to set out on a minute survey of the terraqueous globe, and to travel till he passed along every square mile on its surface, and to continue his route without intermission, at the rate of 30 miles every day, it would require 18,264 years before he could finish his tour, and complete the survey of "this huge rotundity on which we tread:" so that had he commenced his excursion on the day in which Adam was created, and continued it to the present hour, he would not have accomplished one third part of this vast tour. In estimating the size and extent of the earth, we ought also to take into consideration the vast variety of objects with which it is diversified, and the numerous animated beings with which it is stored; the great divisions of land and water, the continents, seas, and islands, into which it is distributed; the lofty ranges of mountains which rear their heads to the clouds; the unfathomable abysses of the ocean; its vast subterraneous caverns, and burning mountains; and the lakes, rivers, and stately forests with which it is so magnificently adorned: the many millions of animals of every size and form, from the elephant to the mite, which traverse its surface; the numerous tribes of fishes, from the enormous whale to the diminutive shrimp which "play" in the mighty with the largest artificial globe. Were the earth a hollow sphere, surrounded merely with an external shell of earth and water ten miles thick, its internal cavity would be sufficient to contain a quantity of materials one hundred and thirty three times greater than the whole mass of continents, islands, and oceans on its surface, and the foundations on which they are supported. We have the strongest reasons, however, to conclude that the earth, in its general structure, is one solid mass, from the surface to the centre, excepting, perhaps, a few caverns scattered here and there, amidst its subterraneous recesses; and that its density gradually increases from its surface to its central regions. What an enormous mass of materials, then, is comprehended within the limits of that globe on which we tread! The mind labours, as it were, to comprehend the mighty idea, and after all its exertions feels itself unable to take in so astonishing a magnitude at one comprehensive grasp. How great must be the power of that Being who commanded it to spring from nothing into existence, who "measures the ocean in the hollow of his hand, who weigheth the mountains in scales, and hangeth the earth on nothing!" See DICK's Christian Philosopher. 1492. O'er a NEW WORLD Columbus cast his view, A glorious sight! in Fourteen Ninety-two. |