flows near by. Find three bridges across the stream. Find the farmhouse in the country north of the village.
Picture of a village.
4. Plan, or Map, of a Village.—Here we have a plan, or map, of the same village. It does not look like a village, but, like the plan of the schoolroom, it shows the direction and exact distance of points from each other.
Map of the same village. Find objects shown in the picture.
5. Larger Maps.—Now as we make maps of villages, so we make maps of counties, states, and whole countries. In some maps, as we shall soon learn, half of the earth is shown at once.
The scale of such a map will be very small. An inch may represent more than a thousand miles.
For Recitation.—What do plans, or maps, show? How much land can be shown on a map?
LESSON V.
THE EARTH.
Preparatory Oral Work.—Make balls of clay. Stick a hat pin through the center of each, ball, and measure the distance through the balls. Do this from several directions. Ask if the measurements are the same. Should they be? Teach the word diameter.
Cut each ball into halves. What shape is the cut surface of each half? Measure the distance around the edge with a string. Put the halves together and halve again in another plane. Ask if these measurements are the same. Should they be? Teach the words circumference, equator, and poles.
1. Shape of the Earth.—In studying geography we shall learn a great many strange things. One of the strangest things is what we learn about the shape of the earth.
Suppose the earth were flat, and we were to travel on and on in one direction without turning, should we ever come back to the same place from which we started? Of course we should not. If we traveled long enough we should come to the edge of the earth. We should be like an ant walking on a table. If the ant keeps on in one direction all the time, it will reach the edge of the table.
But if the ant walks upon an orange and always goes in the same direction, it will at last come to the place from which it started. This is because the orange is round.
If people travel on the earth, always keeping in one direction, like the ant on the orange, they never come to any edge. They arrive at last at the place from which they set out. So we know that the earth is round like a ball or an orange.
Ships seen from the shore.
When the author of this little book was a boy he started from New York in a ship, and traveled for many months, never turning back, until at last he came to New York again. He had gone round the earth.
