The famous statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. The grassy space in the foreground is Battery Park, and the round building is the Aquarium. Here in the early days stood a rude “castle” or fort, later supplanted by an opera house. Washington often walked in the old garden around the building, as did other great Americans. _Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y._] Why is It Called “Battery Park”? The extreme southern end of Manhattan Island is both popularly and officially known as “Battery Park” because it was fortified in the seventeenth century for the protection of the town. In the picture the round building is the Aquarium, which is abundantly supplied with sea and river fishes. The picture was taken from a platform of the Elevated Railway, the trains of which run from this point to practically the northern extremity of the island, making stops en route at stations situated at approximately every eighth street. Manhattan Island was first visited in 1609 by Henry Hudson. The first settlement was located three years afterward on the present site of Battery Park. The Dutch settlement here formed gradually grew into a town called New Amsterdam, which in 1648 had 1,000 inhabitants. In 1664 it surrendered to the British and took its new name from the Duke of York, into whose hands it came. It was the capital of the State of New York from 1784 to 1797, and from 1785 to 1790 it was the seat of the Federal Government. Washington was inaugurated to the presidency at New York in 1789. The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 gave the city command of internal commerce and since that date its progress has been rapid, almost beyond example. How do we Know that the Earth is Round? We have all been taught that the earth is a nearly spherical body which every twenty-four hours rotates from west to east around an imaginary line called its axis--this axis having as its extremities the north and south poles respectively--while in the course of a year it completes a revolution around the sun. To an observer whose view is not obstructed, any part of the earth presents itself as a circular and horizontal expanse, on the circumference of which the heavens appear to rest. Accordingly, in remote antiquity, the earth was regarded as a flat, circular body, floating on the water. But even in antiquity the spherical form of the earth began to be suspected.