Terrestrial

“ The amount of that area available for terrestrial life, the proportion of land and water, the reduction or enlargement of the available surface by the operation of great cosmic forces, all enter into this problem, which changes from one geologic period to another. ”

“ MODERN GEOGRAPHY EMBRACES ORGANIC LIFE. It was a narrow view of geography which confined that science to delineation of terrestrial surface and outline, and to description of the relative position and magnitude of land and water. In its improved form it embraces not only the globe itself and the atmosphere which bathes it, but the living things which vegetate or move upon it, the varied influences they exert upon each other, the reciprocal action and reaction between them and the earth they inhabit. ”

“ The terrestrial globe was, according to him, a huge animal, sensitive to astral influences, frightened at the approach of the other planets, and manifesting its terror by tempests, hurricanes, and earthquakes. ”

“ Slowly but surely physical developments on earth and in adjacent space regions are preparing the stage for the later attempts to establish such life forms as we had decided would be best adapted to the unfolding physical environment—both terrestrial and spatial. ”

“ To the former belong the solar systems, including the earth considered as a planet. The idea of terrestrial bodies comprehends all the different single objects perceptible by the senses in and on the earth. ”

“ Terrestrial globe on which the position of the principal places on the surface of the earth are shown according to the principal observations of the most celebrated astronomers and geographers of our times by the labor of John Gabriel Doppelmayr, mathematician, professor and publisher of Nürnberg. ”

“ They called it, naturally enough, The Sun—just as home was Earth, Terra, or simply The World. And naturally enough, being the ascendant animal on Earth, they called themselves human beings. They were looking for extraterrestrial souls to save. ”

“ Astronomical dialogue between a gentleman and a lady wherein the doctrine of the sphere, the uses of the globe and the elements of astronomy and geography are explained in a pleasant and familiar way. ”

“ Excepting slight damage to its horizon circle the globe may be said to be in an excellent state of preservation. In a neat cartouch in the North Pacific is the title legend reading, “Globus terrestris in quo locorum insigniorum situs terraeque facies secundum praecipuas celeberrimorum nostri aevi Astronomorum et Geographorum observationes opera Joh. ”

“ What if the atmosphere had really withdrawn to this dark face? And if air, why not water? Would not this be enough to infuse life into the whole continent? Why should not vegetation flourish on its plains, fish in its seas, animals in its forests, and man in every one of its zones that were capable of sustaining life? To these interesting questions, what a satisfaction it would be to be able to answer positively one way or another! For thousands of difficult problems a mere glimpse at this hemisphere would be enough to furnish a satisfactory reply. ”

“ The whole land seemed stirring with perpetual movement, all in one direction;—from the bright hills at its commencement, to the dark mountains at the end. Earth and sky seemed moving, as when an enormous flight of migratory birds is passing by, but earth and sky were really stationary. This movement was one constant tide of human life, ceaselessly streaming across the land. ”

“ It is a singular and interesting thing to stand, as I do now, upon the confines of the earth, as it were, ‘at the green earth’s end,’ and gaze back through the vista of time, over Europe, and Africa, and Asia, upon the nations that have risen and flourished, and become extinct, each in its turn, like those animal races, whose story is sculptured, geologists tell us, upon the ribs and arches of the earth beneath us. ”

“ On the wings of these books, we can fly to the corners of the earth,— penetrate the crust of the globe, and move through the ground faster than a mole or the Ghost in "Hamlet,"—dive into the ocean and explore its depths—or, like the fairy, "put a girdle round the earth in forty nunutes;" and when we have measured and weighed this orb, we can mount to the stars, and range the universe. Here, geography, geology, botany, zoölogy, astronomy, may bring forth to us their treasures, and enable us, in this small room, to traverse the world. ”

“ But the skin of the earth is restless, as the inner fires waver in their long cooling. Beneath the volatile cloak of air, and the tidal robe of waters, the rocky layer encrusting the unknown vast core of the earth moves in its own hour. A slow adjustment, a period of planetary shudders, and a land is engulfed, a continent pressed upward. ”

“ Thus simply and with little expense of altitude is the surface of the earth diversified. What would human life be without forests, those natural cities? From the tops of mountains they appear like smooth-shaven lawns ”

“ Say a visitor from Mars arrived upon the Earth, he would no doubt report on his return that the mountains here were so many thousands of feet high and the seas so many thousands of feet deep, and the area of the land and sea so many thousand square miles; that the productivity of the land in one quarter had had the effect of attracting a large part of the population to that quarter, and the aridity or cold of another portion had had the effect of preventing human settlement there ”

“ The mind is delighted, and the imagination charmed, by contemplating the physical arrangements of the earth from such points of view as this is which we now have before us; from it the sea, and the air, and the land, appear each as a part of that grand machinery upon which the well-being of all the inhabitants of earth, sea, and air depends; and which, in the beautiful adaptations that we are endeavouring ”

“ How amazing it is that this ponderous globe should be suspended in the fluid air, without any visible support, and upheld only by the sovereign will of its almighty Creator! His power, who “hangeth the earth upon nothing,” is inconceivably great; and the revolutions of this globe produce the most beneficial effects. The daily rotation of the earth causes the uniform succession of light and darkness; and its annual motion occasions the difference of the length of the days and nights, and the beautiful diversity of the seasons. ”

“ Other air currents they knew and obeyed, and as they travelled upon their proper way, like a moving world, their peaks and promontories swelled and waned, spread and arose, billowed into new continents, craned and tottered into new golden pinnacles that drew their glory from the gates of the sun. ”

“ Or, to vary the illustration, if from the depths of a forest we glimpse a fragment of the remote horizon, and mentally complete the circle in accordance with that arc, our ring will not even be the ring of the meeting of earth and sky encompassing our standpoint; ours will be all shipless sea or green valley-bottom, while the true horizon would be sea and shore, vale and river, wood and hill, abounding with various life. ”

“ If in the Terraqueous globe all that now is land were sea & all that is sea were land to discover what diferences there would be in all things as to the constitution of climes, tides, navigation, & many other considerables. ”

“ True, geography has now mapped out into mere earth and water the space that lay beyond the narrower sea and land known to the older nations, and astronomy no longer recognizes the flat earth trodden by men as being the roof of subterranean halls, nor the sky as being a solid firmament, shutting out men’s gaze from strata or spheres of empyræan regions beyond. ”

“ We love the sweet green fields of your planet, its clear water and skies, its generous soil. But you have never permitted Earth to become our home, and so we leave you. We leave you, people of the cruel planet. ”

“ And if slumber tarries when you lie in an open spot, you may consciously ride the great globe through space, and like the shepherd watching by his flock in the clear night while star rises after star, grow aware of the great earth rolling to the east beneath you. ”

“ The extent of table-lands, the heights of mountain ranges, the direction and volume of rivers, the vicinity of the ocean, the indentation of the coast-line, the temperature of the air, the abundance or rarity of rain, and the correlations between soil, air, and water—all these are pregnant with effects, and explain much of the character and mode of life of primitive nations. ”

“ Think of the solid earth, with trees and houses, cities and countries, mountains and seas—think of the vast tracts of land in Asia, Africa, and America—and then picture the whole mass spinning like a top, and rushing along its annual course round the sun at the rate of nineteen miles every second. ”

“ In this area are forests and cultivated fields, and vegetation of all sorts starts forth in the greatest profusion, making upon the surface of the planet a dark belt which is visible to us even forty million miles away when the planet is at its nearest and favourably situated. ”

“ This primeval scene was the product of natural forces working through uncounted periods of time; the continent slowly rising and falling in the sea like the heaving breast of a world asleep; glaciers carving patiently through ages the deep estuaries; seasons innumerable clothing the hills with alternate bloom and decay. ”

“ Father, the Terrans call me a wise doctor, a man of healing. Among the Terrans I can see that my people, if they will come to us and help us, have air they can breathe and food which will suit them and that they are guarded from the light. ”

“ For a space the star, hotter now and larger and brighter than the sun in its strength, showed with pitiless brilliance the wide and populous country; towns and villages with their pagodas and trees, roads, wide cultivated fields, millions of sleepless people staring in helpless terror at the incandescent sky ”

“ Throbbing tides of sea and air, the heart-beats of a planet, drive the humid breath of oceans over the mountain skeleton, and through the capillaries of earth, clothing her ribs in clay, and spreading her first gardens of ooze. ”

“ Earth air and Earth smells in Carlin's nostrils, sleepy Earth sounds in his ears; the shine of the old spaceport's beacons, and the soaring loom of the distant tower that marked the spot where a man of long ago had first dared space. This world, this little Earth, was worth risking death for, even for a stranger from far stars! ”

“ Remoteness on the earth's surface is usually an indication of diversity in the fauna and flora, while strongly contrasted climates are always accompanied by a considerable contrast in the forms of life. ”

“ It must be remembered that at this time men had still to spread into enormous areas of the land surface of the globe. There were vast mountain wildernesses, forest wildernesses, sandy deserts, and frozen lands. ”

“ To enumerate, in the broadest way, the variety of conditions under which life exists here, one has only to enumerate creatures living in the deepest abysses of the ocean; high up on the slopes of the Himalayas; swarming in arctic seas; withstanding the hot glare of a tropical sun; living deep in the ground; breeding in the darkest caves; flourishing in desert regions; thriving in water below freezing, and again in water nearly at the boiling point. ”

“ Yet while it is from these elevated parts of the earth's surface, where the activities of nature seem to beat with a more rapid pulse, that the human imagination has been more especially stimulated, even among the comparatively featureless lowlands the influence of outer things, though less potent, may be distinctly traced. ”

“ In the far distance rises a dark-blue range, towering over the dim green ocean of forest, and marking the contrast sharply between the land of hill and dale and the monotonous levels of the lower country. ”

“ I have seen one edge of the sky raised straight up a few million miles, as though some one had stuck poles under its corners, so that the western heaven did not curve cup-wise over to the horizon at all as it did everywhere else, but rather formed the proscenium of a gigantic stage. ”

“ When the foundations of the earth were laid, we know who it was that “measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out the heavens with a span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance;” ”

“ Oceans and continents, islands and lakes, hills and valleys, have come and gone with all their successive races of living things, and that same planet has marked them all. She has seen, too, as but a thing of yesterday, the appearance of man upon the scene, with all the successive centuries that have elapsed since then. ”

“ Maybe, they envy us our globe, a dazzling dwelling-place whose splendor radiates through space; they see its greenish clarity varying with the extent of cloud that veils its seas and continents, and they observe its motion of rotation, by which all the countries of our planet are revealed in succession to its admirers. ”

“ Every part of the globe,—the ocean and the inland lake,—the wide and far-winding river, and the babbling stream,—the mountain and the valley,—the forest with its depth of shade, and the desert with its intensity of light,—the cold regions of the frost-chained north, and the fervid clime within the tropics—presents for our study innumerable animals, each fitted for the conditions to which it is destined; and through the whole we find a gradual elevation in the scale of intelligence, until at last, separated from all by peculiar powers, we arrive at man himself. ”

“ Those mountains were hollow, honeycombed into a host of rooms in which, under precisely controlled environments of temperature, atmosphere, and radiation, were grown and studied hundreds of widely-variant forms of life. ”