If, for instance, the earth were a plane surface, a ship sailing away from us over the sea would appear to grow smaller and smaller as it receded into the distance, becoming eventually a tiny speck, and fading gradually from our view. This, however, is not at all what actually takes place. As we watch a vessel receding, its hull appears bit by bit to slip gently down over the horizon, leaving the masts alone visible. Then, in their turn, the masts are seen to slip down in the same manner, until eventually every trace of the vessel is gone. On the other hand, when a ship comes into view, the masts are the first portions to appear. They gradually rise up from below the horizon, and the hull follows in its turn, until the whole vessel is visible. Again, when one is upon a ship at sea, a set of masts will often be seen sticking up alone above the horizon, and these may shorten and gradually disappear from view without the body of the ship to which they belong becoming visible at all. Since one knows from experience that there is no _edge_ at the horizon over which a vessel can drop down, the appearance which we have been describing can only be explained by supposing that the surface of the earth is always curving gradually in every direction. The distance at which what is known as the _horizon_ lies away from us depends entirely upon the height above the earth's surface where we happen at the moment to be. A ship which has appeared to sink below the horizon for a person standing on the beach, will be found to come back again into view if he at once ascends a high hill. Experiment shows that the horizon line lies at about three miles away for a person standing at the water's edge. The curving of the earth's surface is found, indeed, to be at the rate of eight inches in every mile. Now it can be ascertained, by calculation, that a body curving at this rate in every direction must be a globe about 8000 miles in diameter. Again, the fact that, if not stopped by such insuperable obstacles as the polar ice and snow, those who travel continually in any one direction upon the earth's surface always find themselves back again at the regions from which they originally set out, is additional ground for concluding that the earth is a globe. We can find still further evidence. For instance, in an eclipse of the moon the earth's shadow, when seen creeping across the moon's face, is noted to be _always_ circular in shape. One cannot imagine how such a thing could take place unless the earth were a sphere.