“That is true, Uncle. Like the little boy you have been telling about, I believed that the sky was a large blue cover resting on the earth. By good walking one ought to reach the edge of the cover and the end of the world. I thought, too, that the sun rose behind these mountains, and set behind those on the opposite side, where there was a deep well that the sun plunged into and remained hidden during the night. One day you took me to the mountains where the edges of the blue cover seem to rest. It was a long way off, I remember; you lent me your cane, which helped me in walking. I did not see any well for the sun to plunge into; everything looked just as it does here. The edge of the sky still seemed to rest on the earth, only much farther away. And you told me that by going to the end of what we saw, then farther and farther still, we should find the same appearance everywhere, without ever seeing the end of a vault that does not really exist.” “Nowhere, as all three of you know, does the sky rest on the earth; nowhere is there any danger of striking one’s head against the firmament; everywhere the blue vault has the same appearance as here. You know, too, that in always going ahead you meet with plains, mountains, valleys, water-courses, seas; but nowhere are there any barriers marking the limits of the world. “Imagine a large ball suspended in the air by a thread, and on this ball a gnat. If this gnat should take a notion to go all over the surface, is it not true that it could come and go over the ball, above, below, on the side, without ever encountering an obstacle, without ever seeing a barrier rise up to block its passage? Is it not equally true that if it always kept on in the same direction, the gnat would end by making the tour of the ball and would come back to its starting-point? So it is with us on the surface of the earth, though we are far more insignificant when compared with the globe that bears us than is the tiniest gnat in comparison with the biggest ball you can imagine. Without ever encountering a barrier, without ever touching the cupola of the sky, we come and go in a thousand different directions, we accomplish the most distant journeys, even make the tour of the earth and return to our starting-point. The earth, then, is round; it is an immense ball that swims without support in celestial space. As to the blue vault that arches above us, it is mere appearance caused by the blue color of the air enveloping the earth on all sides.” “The ball on which your imaginary gnat travels is suspended by a thread. By what chain is the enormous ball of the earth hung?” asked Jules. “The earth is not suspended from the firmament by any celestial chain, nor does it rest upon any support, like a geographical globe on its pedestal. According to an Indian legend the terrestrial globe is borne upon four bronze columns.” “And what do the four columns rest on, in their turn?” “They rest on four white elephants.”