5. In what way does the Earth move? Once in twenty-four hours she whirls round on her axis from west to east. 6. What is the Earth’s axis? An imaginary line through her centre, from the north pole to the south pole. 7. How does our Earth’s spinning make the heavenly bodies seem to move? A little in the same way that, when we journey in a fast train, houses and trees and fields seem to go the other way. 8. Did people always know that the Earth whirled round? No; they used to think it was a real journeying of the Sun and Stars in our sky. 9. Where does the surface of the Earth move fastest? On the equator. The ground there rushes at a great speed. 10. Where does it move most slowly? At the poles. 11. Does a man standing on the equator feel how fast he moves? No; because the Earth moves smoothly; and everything on the ground and in the air is carried along by the Earth. 12. How can he know that the Earth moves? By looking up into the sky--like a man in a train looking out of the window. 13. How does the Earth’s spinning make the Sun seem to rise? The Sun remains fixed--but a man on the Earth is carried round towards the east, and so the Sun seems to come towards him from the east. 14. And how does it make the Sun seem to set? The man is still carried on towards the east, and by-and-by he leaves the Sun behind him in the west. CHAPTER V. THE MOON BY NIGHT. How far off would you guess the Moon to be from our Earth? A mile or two, perhaps you will say. Or twenty miles! Or forty miles! Or one hundred miles! Even on Earth it is often puzzling to tell distances. If one is looking across a smooth surface, with nothing to break it, one cannot easily judge. I remember going in a sailing-boat, as a child, and after a good while saying, “Why, what a little way we have come! The shore looks only a mile or two off!” And I was told that it was at least ten miles off. You see, there was nothing between to break the smooth water-surface, and so to show how far we had sailed. If it is perplexing down here on Earth it is much more so up in the Sky. There, nothing lies between to break the great distance; and the stars seem so much alike, except that some are a little brighter and some a little dimmer. One might very easily suppose that the Moon and the Sun and all the Stars were at much the same distances from the Earth. Yet nothing could be a greater mistake. Some are very near, and some are enormously far away. That is to say, some are very near compared with others. But even the very nearest is a great deal farther off than fifty or a hundred miles. Of all bright bodies in the sky, seen day after day and night after night from our Earth, not one ever comes so close as the round silvery Moon. The Moon is our own especial companion. She always journeys with us, and never goes away.