There I cannot tell you much. We know that the Earth does pull: but how she pulls is another question. We name that pulling “Attraction,” and sometimes we call it by a longer word, “Gravitation.” But not the very wisest man living can explain to us exactly what attraction _is_. He can only tell us what it _does_. Did you ever see a magnet? It is generally shaped rather like a horse-shoe: and the two ends have an odd drawing power. A number of tiny iron shavings, held near enough, will jump up to meet the magnet as if they were alive. This is because the magnet pulls them towards itself. Sometimes a toy-box of metal ducks or fishes is sold, with a magnet; and they will follow the magnet to and fro, in a basin of water. Now our Earth seems to be a sort of huge magnet, with power to pull towards herself, not only iron or steel, but every single thing and creature upon her surface. Not only on one side of the Earth, but around the whole globe, on every part, there is the same steady downward drag, always _toward the centre of the Earth_. The mountains are pulled earthward: so are houses and trees, rocks and soils, seas and rivers, animals and men. There is not a single thing on or near the surface of our Earth which is not thus drawn earthward. If it were not for this attraction nothing would have any weight. When you leap upward and instantly drop back it is because the Earth drags you down. Without such dragging you would not be heavy at all. Think what that would mean. You might jump over the highest mountains with ease: or you might spring away into the sky, and never return: only, of course, there is no air, far away in the sky, and you could not breathe without air. But if the Earth did not attract we should have no air here either, because it would long ago have all wandered away. Earth’s strong attraction holds the air prisoner, as well as all other things upon her surface. Now do you begin to see how it is that people do not fall away into the sky, from any part of Earth? They are held firmly down by Earth’s perpetual drag, which gives them weight. Whether they are in England or in Australia, in Asia or in America, makes no difference. The _pull_ is always downward, always earthward. The difficulty always is to get away from earth, upward, toward the sky. So when we think of the world as a whole we have to remember that in the surrounding sky there is no true “up” or “down” in one direction more than another. “Up” is towards the sky for each man, from that part of Earth on which he stands: and as our Earth is ever turning round and round our “up” is constantly changing its direction. Perhaps you will think that I am rather slow in getting to my subject of “The Starry Skies.” Two whole chapters first about this old Earth of ours! But indeed I have not been slow: for on the very first page we started right off with a Bright World in the Sky.