“And the white elephants?” “They rest on four monstrous turtles.” “And the turtles?” “Well, they swim in an ocean of milk.” “And the ocean of milk?” “The legend says nothing about that, and it is right to be silent. It would have been better not to imagine all these various supports, resting one on another, to hold the earth up. Suppose a pedestal for the earth, then a second to uphold the first, then a third, fourth, thousandth, if you like; it is only postponing the question without answering it, since finally, after having erected all the supports imaginable, one must ask what will the last one rest on. Perhaps you are thinking of the vault of the heavens, which might well sustain the earth; but know that this vault has no reality, that it is nothing but an appearance caused by the air. Besides, thousands of travelers have gone over the earth in every direction, and nowhere have they seen either a suspending chain or a pedestal of any kind. Everywhere they see only what is to be seen here. The earth is isolated in space; it swims in a void without any support, just as do the moon and the sun.” “But, then, why doesn’t it fall?” persisted Jules. “To fall, my little friend, is to rush earthward as a stone does when raised in the hand and then left to itself. How can the large ball rush to the earth, when it is the whole earth? Is it possible for a thing to rush toward itself?” “No.” “Well, then! Besides, imagine this. All is the same around the terrestrial globe; properly speaking, there is no up or down, no right or left. We call _up_ the direction toward adjacent space, or toward the sky; but remember that there is sky also on the other side of the earth, that there it is just the same as we see it here, and that this is true for all parts of the earth’s surface. If it seemed to you quite simple that the earth does not rush toward the sky which is above us, why should you expect it to rush toward the opposite sky? To fall toward the opposite sky would be to rise, as the lark rises here, when with one stroke of the wing it takes its flight and soars above us.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER LII THE EARTH “THE earth is round, as proved by the following facts. When, in order to reach the town he is journeying toward, a traveler crosses a level plain where nothing intercepts his view, from a certain distance the highest points of the town, the summits of towers and steeples, are seen first. From a lesser distance the spires of the steeples become entirely visible, then the roofs of buildings themselves; so that the view embraces a great number of objects, beginning with the highest and ending with the lowest, as the distance diminishes. The curvature of the ground is the cause of it.” [Illustration: The Earth] Uncle Paul took a pencil and traced on paper the picture that you see here; then he continued: