te boundaries, vast regions, and immeasurable distances. The
Mediterranean and the Euxine were illimitable stretches of ocean waste
over which years could be spent in endless wandering. On their
mysterious shores were the improbable homes of impossible peoples. The
Great Sea, the Broad Sea, the Boundless Sea; the Ethiopians, "dwelling
far away, the most distant of men," and the Cimmerians, "covered with
darkness and cloud," where "baleful night is spread over timid mortals."
Phoenicia was a sore journey, Egypt simply unattainable, while the
Pillars of Hercules marked the extreme edge of the universe. Ulysses was
nine days in sailing from Ismarus the city of the Ciconians, to the
country of the Lotus-eaters--a period of time which to-day would breed
anxiety in the hearts of the underwriters should it be occupied by the
slowest tramp steamer in traversing the Mediterranean and Black Seas from
Gibraltar to Sebastopol.

Homer's world, restricted to less than a drummer's circuit, was
nevertheless immense, surrounded by a thin veneer of universe--the Stream
of Ocean. But how it has shrunk! To-day, precisely charted, weighed,
and measured, a thousand times larger than the world of Homer, it is
become a tiny speck, gyrating to immutable law through a universe the
bounds of which have been pushed incalculably back. The light of Algol
shines upon it--a light which travels at one hundred and ninety thousand
miles per second, yet requires forty-seven years to reach its
destination. And the denizens of this puny ball have come to know that
Algol possesses an invisible companion, three and a quarter millions of
miles away, and that the twain move in their respective orbits at rates
of fifty-five and twenty-six miles per second. They also know that
beyond it are great chasms of space, innumerable worlds, and vast star
systems.

While much of the shrinkage to which the planet has been subjected is due
to the increased knowledge of mathematics and physics, an equal, if not
greater, portion may be ascribed to the perfection of the means of
locomotion and communication. The enlargement of stellar space,
demonstrating with stunning force the insignificance of the earth, has
been negative in its effect; but the quickening of travel and
intercourse, by making the earth's parts accessible and knitting them
together, has been positive.

The advantage of the animal over the vegetable kingdom is obvious. The
cabbage, should its env