Madam How and Lady Why; Or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for ChildrenKingsley, Charles
History
Madam How and Lady Why; Or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children
Kingsley, Charles
Geology -- Juvenile literature; Natural history -- Juvenile literature
You will see in it many red dots, which mark the volcanos which are still
burning: and black dots, which mark those which have been burning at some
time or other, not very long ago, scattered about the world. Sometimes
they are single, like the red dot at Otaheite, or at Easter Island in the
Pacific. Sometimes the are in groups, or clusters, like the cluster at
the Sandwich Islands, or in the Friendly Islands, or in New Zealand. And
if we look in the Atlantic, we shall see four clusters: one in poor half-
destroyed Iceland, in the far north, one in the Azores, one in the
Canaries, and one in the Cape de Verds. And there is one dot in those
Canaries which we must not overlook, for it is no other than the famous
Peak of Teneriffe, a volcano which is hardly burnt out yet, and may burn
up again any day, standing up out of the sea more than 12,000 feet high
still, and once it must have been double that height. Some think that it
is perhaps the true Mount Atlas, which the old Greeks named when first
they ventured out of the Straits of Gibraltar down the coast of Africa,
and saw the great peak far to the westward, with the clouds cutting off
its top; and said that it was a mighty giant, the brother of the Evening
Star, who held up the sky upon his shoulders, in the midst of the
Fortunate Islands, the gardens of the daughter of the Evening Star, full
of strange golden fruits; and that Perseus had turned him into stone,
when he passed him with the Gorgon's Head.
But you will see, too, that most of these red and black dots run in
crooked lines; and that many of the clusters run in lines likewise.
Look at one line: by far the largest on the earth. You will learn a good
deal of geography from it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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