“The earth is forty million meters in circumference or 10,000 leagues, for a league measures four kilometers. To encircle a round table, you take hold of hands, three, four, or five of us. To encircle in the same manner the vast bosom of the earth, it would take a chain of people about equal to the whole population of France. A traveler able to walk day after day at the rate of ten leagues a day, which no one could do, would take three years to girdle the globe, supposing it to be all land and no sea. But, where are the hamstrings that could resist three years of such continual fatigue, when a walk of ten leagues generally exhausts our strength and makes it impossible for us to begin again the next morning?” “The longest walk I ever took was to the pine woods, where we went to look for the nest of the processionary caterpillars, the day of the thunderstorm. How many leagues did we go?” “About four, two to go and two to come back.” “Only four leagues! All the same I was played out. At the end I could hardly put one foot before the other. It would take me, then, from seven to eight years to go round the world, walking every day as far as my strength would let me.” “Your calculation is right.” “The earth then is a very large ball?” “Yes, my friend, very large. Another example will help you to understand it. Let us represent the terrestrial globe by a ball of greater diameter than a man’s height—by a ball two meters in diameter; then, in correct proportion, represent in relief on its surface some of the principal mountains. The highest mountain in the world is Gaurisankar, a part of the Himalaya chain, in central Asia. Its peaks rise to a height of 8840 meters. Rarely are the clouds high enough to crown its crest, and its base covers the extent of an empire. Alas! what does man become, materially, in face of such a prodigious colossus! Well, let us raise the giant on our large ball representing the earth; do you know what will be needed to represent it? A tiny little grain of sand which would be lost between your fingers, a grain of sand that would stand out in relief only a millimeter and a third! The gigantic mountain that overwhelmed us with its immensity is nothing when compared with the earth. The highest mountain in Europe, Mont Blanc, whose height is 4810 meters, would be represented by a grain of sand half as large as the other.” “When you told us of the roundness of the earth,” put in Claire, “I thought of the enormous mountains and deep valleys, and asked myself how, with all these great irregularities, the earth could nevertheless be round. I see now that these irregularities are a mere nothing in comparison with the immensity of the terrestrial ball.” “An orange is round in spite of the wrinkles in its skin. It is the same with the earth: it is round in spite of the irregularities of its surface; it is an enormous ball sprinkled with grains of dust and sand proportioned to its size, and these are mountains.”