The causes of poverty / by Callaghan McCarthy.

  • McCarthy, Callaghan.
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The causes of poverty / by Callaghan McCarthy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    reflection on our general acquaintance with geogra- phy, will enable us to evolve a mental picture of these earthly phenomena as they move through space. An individual, who has read a description of a cycle race round an elliptical track, may easily imagine himself as moving in the space within that track, watching the fortunes and efforts of a par- ticular competitor. In the same way, from our knowledge of the earth’s rotation round the sun, we may imagine ourselves as moving within its orbit, accompanying it at a distance, and observing, day after day, month after month, and year after year, the phenomena that it displays. We may thus con- ceive, in the first place, the spherical earth, atmos- pheric moisture, and air; in the next place, vege- table life, animal life, and human life; and, in the last place, motion, light, and heat. A school globe turned round from left to right exactly represents the earth’s diurnal revolution from west to east. Starting from longitude oS, a globe displays successively before the eye its repre- sentations of the Atlantic Ocean, South and North America, the Pacific Ocean, the continent of Australia and the islands of Australasia, the Indian Ocean, the land masses of Asia, and, lastly, the continents of Europe and Africa with the line at which our observations began. In the same way, the earth displays successively before the sun’s rays the same oceans and continents and in the same consecutive order. Imagining ourselves as moving midway between the earth and sun along a circle parallel to the track of the former, we see before us