happy mean between two extremes. It is
neither too near to, nor too far from, our great
source of light and heat. The planet nearest to
the sun—if the reader will excuse this refreshing
of his astronomy—is Mercury; then Venus; and
then ourselves. Beyond us is Mars; then comes
a group of sixty or seventy little planets,
supposed by Lagrange to be the fragments of a
large one exploded. That this is not the case,
is proved by the particular movements of each
one of these small planets. Then follows
Jupiter; then Saturn; and finally Neptune, the
last being thirty times as far from the sun as we
are, and whose inhabitants, if any, must be
warmed by an extremely feeble ray. Mars seems
to resemble us most in physical geography. Like
us, it has its change of seasons, and its polar
snows. If Jupiter's belts be clouds or girdling
vapours, the Jovine landscapes may not be utterly
unlike our own. A visit to Mars and Jupiter
would be highly interesting, although attended
with inconveniences which we know, not to
mention those we know not of. On Mars, we
should be ridiculously light and strong; able to
skip over houses and tree-tops. On Jupiter,
we should be inconveniently heavy and weak,
and perhaps unable to stand against its
hurricanes. It is not unlikely that the air of
neither planet might agree with us. The red
tint of Mars is attributed by some to a
vegetation coloured like red cabbages and the Colcus
Verschaffeltii, which is now so fashionable in our
gardens.

Our Earth, taken as a whole, is five and a half
times denser than water. Although most highly
favoured by many beneficial and providential
arrangements, Terra, in respect to size, does not
claim high rank in the Universe. It is only the
three-hundredth part of Jupiter; which itself is
not the thousandth part of the sun; whose bulk
is only a fraction of Sirius's. It is believed
that Sirius has a planet, or "black star,"
revolving round it which is at least as large as
our sun, and may have thousands of smaller
ones.

??, Ge, is Greek for Earth. Geometry, therefore,
teaches us to measure the Earth; Geography,
to describe it; Geology, to investigate its
history; Geomancy, to tell fortunes by it;
Geodesy, to divide and distribute it—land-
surveying, in short. Virgil's Georgics are
poems relating to agricultural matters, to
events connected with the culture of the Earth
—which brings us to Earth, the element of old
chemists, who called the earthy residue of their
calcinations and distillations, caput mortuum,
the sum of dead things.

Earth is not a simple or homogeneous
substance, but has been gradually formed by the
decomposition of rock and other minerals by
natural agencies. The metals even help to form
earth. The red colour of many earths is owing
to oxide of iron. Both clay and chalk, those
wide-spread earths, are now known to have a
metallic base. The quality of earths much
depends on the nature of the subsoil on which
they lie, and out of which they have been
formed. On a chalky subsoil, earth is whitish;
on the red sandstone, reddish; on ochre and
gravel, yellow or buff; on blue clay, greyish.

Earth, Sea, and Air, are the three grand
illustrations of the three forms of matter known
to us; earth of the solid, sea of the liquid, and
air of the gaseous state. Fire, or heat, is the
pervading force which runs through them all,
more or less, and keeps them in incessant motion
or change. For the law of constant change,
dissolution, and renovation, is submitted to by
earth as well as by ourselves. "Of absolute
rest," says Grove, "Nature gives us no
evidence. All matter, as far as we can ascertain,
is ever in movement, not merely in masses, as
with the planetary spheres, but also molecularly,
or throughout its most intimate structure.
Every alteration of temperature produces a
molecular change throughout the whole
substance heated or cooled; so that, as a fact, we
cannot predicate of any portion of matter that it
is absolutely at rest." Earth, therefore, is not
at rest, but is working, fermenting, and changing,
for our good. "There is force," says
Carlyle, "in every leaf that rots; else, why.
should it rot?" Whatever rots, returns to
earth; earth is thereby refreshed, renewed, and
even augmented.

"Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to
dust," the impressive formula of our Burial
Service, is a succinct account both of what we
are, and of what earth is; the immaterial
principle joined to the one, and the ever-working
forces inherent in the other, being implied
although not expressed. Dust we are, and
unto dust shall we return. Our bodies are of
the earth, earthy. Our blood contains iron.
Our corporeal structure is built up on a
foundation of bones, whose base is as mineral as a
marble column, namely, lime. Without the
lime in us, we could not stand erect.
Imperious Cæsar, dead and turned to clay, might
stop a hole to keep the wind away.

Earth is ashes, if ashes be the residue of
combustion. Every handful of earth on Earth,
has been burnt. Besides passing through the
great primeval fire, some of it has been burnt
over and over again—in the natural fires existing
in warm-blooded animals; in the artificial
fires kindled for their various uses by the human
race; in the slow spontaneous combustion
produced by the oxygen in the air.

Earth is dust. It is partly composed of
minute portions severed from the hardest
substances by the wedges of frost and the ever-
repeated grinding of wind and rain. The friction
of currents, the pounding of waves, the crumbling
by chemical agencies, have combined to
form the heterogeneous compounds which we
call earth. Whether in the shape of impalpable
clays and marls, or made up of sand, coarse
gravel, and shingle; whether as leaf-mould,
mud, or animal remains, we may fairly say that
earth is dust. It is a complex mixture of
pulverised materials, an artistic sort of mince-
meat, elaborately and benevolently combined
for the support and sustenance of plants, and