New geographies . ig. 115. — A drawing of that half of the sphere that in-cludes the New World, — to show the position of thepoles and the equator. around the earth was given on page , then, is the length of the equa-tor? As the earth spins on its axis, all points onthe surface must go with it, just as every partof the skin of an apple turns with the the earth makes one complete turn eachday, a man at the equator travels twenty-fivethousand miles in twenty-four hours. What awhirling motion that is! It is at the rate ofover one thousand miles an hour, while thefastest trains
New geographies . ig. 115. — A drawing of that half of the sphere that in-cludes the New World, — to show the position of thepoles and the equator. around the earth was given on page , then, is the length of the equa-tor? As the earth spins on its axis, all points onthe surface must go with it, just as every partof the skin of an apple turns with the the earth makes one complete turn eachday, a man at the equator travels twenty-fivethousand miles in twenty-four hours. What awhirling motion that is! It is at the rate ofover one thousand miles an hour, while thefastest trains travel little more than sixty milesan hour! GENERAL FACTS ABOUT THE EARTH 91 3. The Zones The hottest part of the earth is near the equator. The reason for this is that the sun, at midday, is The zones and -,- .^ , , ^ their bounda- directly over the heads ofthe people who live in thatregion. You know that the sunsrays feel warmer at noon than in theearly evening, because the sun is more lies 1. The torridzone. SOUTH-POrE^ Fig. 116. — A map of the zones. The colors suggest sharpdifferences between the zones on the two sides of theboundaries; but you should remember that thechanges are really very gradual. nearly overhead at noon. For muchthe same reason the sun seems warmerin summer than in winter, because insummer it rises higher in the the equator, however, and for manymiles to the north and south of it, thesun is high in the heavens both in sum-mer and winter. Thus there is a widebelt, extending all the way around theearth, that never has any winter; it ishot there every day in the year, as it isin summer where we live. The northern boundary of this hot beltis called the Tropic of Cancer (Fig. 116); it is about fifteen hundred miles northof the equator. The southern bound-ary, which is likewise fifteen hundredmiles from the equator, is called theIVopic of Capricorn. In all the vastspace between these two lines, or tropics,the sun is straight overhead during
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectgeography, bookyear19
