Page:Maury's New Elements of Geography, 1907.djvu/9

Rh If we should meet a boy walking in the opposite way, he would be going toward the south.

The sun, we see, helps us to learn the principal directions, north, south, east and west. These are what we call fixed points. If the place to which we are going lies half-way between the north and east, its direction is northeast. If it is half-way between north and west, the direction is northwest. If the place is half-way between south and east, the direction is southeast. And if it is half-way between south and west, the direction is southwest.

From what we have now learned we see that when the sun shines it is easy to tell in what direction we are going. But there is something that shows direction even better than the sun.

Sometimes people are days and days at sea without seeing the land, and with nothing but sky above them and water all around. Often the sky is covered with clouds, and the sun cannot be seen. How do they know which way to go? They use what is called the compass. In it there is a little needle made of steel that always points toward the north.

With a compass, therefore, we can always tell which way is north. And if we know where north is, we can also tell where the south, the east and the west are.

1. What we Mean by Distance.—It is not easy to find a place if we know only in what direction it is from us. We should know also how far away it is, or the distance we shall have to go before reaching it. If we know only that the house of a friend is east of ours, we cannot tell just where it is. But if we know that it is east of ours, and also how far east, then we can tell very nearly where it is.

We have already seen how we learn about