But how could we have either without the Sun? His rays cause the trees to grow from which we obtain our wood. His warmth in the long past made those forests grow which were afterwards buried under ground and became coal. When we burn coal and wood they give out again the heat which once they borrowed from the Sun. Without the Sun there could be no oil for lamps, no tallow or wax for candles. Nothing would live, nothing would grow. Our Earth would be a dead world like the Moon, fixed and changeless. True, the Sun shines upon the Moon as upon us; and there he can do little, because air and water are wanting. _With_ air and water for his useful servants he can do much. But air and water without the Sun could do nothing at all--in fact they would be air and water no longer. So we can trace gratefully to the Sun all the heat, the glow, the light, the life, the growth, that we find on Earth. And one step farther brings us to the thought of OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN, who created the Sun, and who appointed it to be our storehouse of Heat and Light. QUESTIONS. 1. Has the Sun phases like the moon? No, he always appears round in shape. 2. Has the Sun gray markings? No, but he has dark spots. 3. Are the spots large, or small? They seem small to us at this distance, but they are really large. 4. What size are they? Fifty thousand miles across, or a hundred thousand miles across, are not uncommon. 5. How was the Sun first found to spin round? By the movement of spots across his face, from one side to the other. 6. What is the length of the Sun’s spin? He spins on his axis once in about 25 or 26 days. 7. Where are spots more often seen? Not far from the Sun’s equator. 8. Do the spots remain long? A spot sometimes comes and goes in one day. Other spots stay for weeks, and even months. 9. What are the spots believed to be? Holes torn by storms in the Sun’s covering of bright clouds. 10. Is any other kind of storm seen on the Sun? Sometimes white spots are seen. 11. Is the Sun heavy in make, or light? Not much heavier than water. 12. What can be seen in an eclipse which is not seen usually? A crimson ocean of gases, mountains of fiery gases, and the “Corona,” or Crown of light. 13. How high are the gas-mountains? Sometimes fifty thousand or a hundred thousand miles high. 14. Are they always the same? No; they come and go and change, like the black spots. 15. Is it likely that men could live on the Sun? It seems quite impossible, the sun being in a state of raging heat. 16. Do we owe much to the Sun? All our light and heat. Without the Sun our world would be a dead world. CHAPTER X. HOW THE WORLD JOURNEYS. You see now how it is that on the Earth we have day and night. The whole Earth spins round and round, and so each part of her in turn comes into sunlight. This is not the only way in which our Earth moves. She also journeys round and round the Sun, revolving always on her axis every day as she goes.