Page:The student's spelling-book, designed to teach the orthography and orthoepy of the English languages, as contained in Webster's American dictionary.djvu/162

 158 THE STUDENT'S SPELLER. ANNUAL REVOLUTION OF THE EARTH.* The earth, at the distance of ninety-five millions of miles from the sun, revolves around it once a year, describing an annual circuit of about five hundred and ninety-seven millions of miles. Hence, this world, with all its burden of oceans, seas and continents, must move forward about sixty-eight thousand miles an hour. At every swing of the pendulum we are carried nearly nineteen miles through space. Yet the earth neither jolts, nor rocks, nor jars ; for the air, the clouds, the ocean, the hills and the mountains move with us, and we are not sensible of the motion. Held in its orbit by the attractive power of the sun, and bathed in the light of its controlling lumina- ry, the earth sweeps onward and onward in its swift career, until it comes back to the point whence it started. And such is the beauty and perfection of its mo- tion, that if it were possible to fix golden rings in the path of this moving body, of such diameter as to per- mit the earth to pass through with a single hair's breadth to spare, this planet would roll onward in its course, from century to century, and from age to age, passing uniformly and invariably through these gold- en rings, with no shadow of variation from its first mo- tion. Wine is a mocker ; strong drink is raging ; and whoso is deceived thereby is not wise. Be not among wine-bibbers, among riotous eaters of flesh ; for the glutton and the drunkard shall come to poverty, and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags. That and the article which follows, and this article, are taken from " The Student's Speaker," which contains many pretty pieces in prose and poetry, and many good dialogues, suitable for young pupils. These articles are inserted here for reading lessons, and also to furnish boys with something to speak.
 * The picture on the opposite page represents three boys learning to speak.