A Short History of the World by H. G. Wells (top e book reader TXT) ๐
Before that vast period of separate existence, the sun and earth and the other planets that circulate round the sun may have been a great swirl of diffused matter in space. The telescope reveals to us in various parts of the heavens luminous spiral clouds of matter, the spiral nebulae, which appear to be in rotation about a centre. It is supposed by many astronomers that the sun and its planets were once such a spiral, and that their matter has undergone concentration into its present form. Through majestic aeons that concentration went on until in that vast remoteness of the past for which we have given figures, the world and its moon were distinguishable. They were spinning then much faster than they are spinning now; they were at a lesser distance from the sun; they travelled round it very much faster, and they were probably incandescent or molten at the surface. The sun itself was a much greater blaze in the heavens.
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140 The Acropolis, Athens
141 Theatre at Epidauros, Greece
141 The Caryatides of the Erechtheum
142 Athene of the Parthenon
143 Alexander the Great
146 Alexanderโs Victory at Issus
147 The Apollo Belvedere
148 Aristotle
152 Statuette of Maitreya
153 The Death of Buddha
154 Tibetan Buddha
158 A Burmese Buddha
159 The Dhamรชkh Tower, Sarnath
160 A Chinese Buddhist Apostle
164 The Court of Asoka
165 Asoka Panel from Bharhut
165 The Pillar of Lions (Asokan)
166 Confucius
169 The Great Wall of China
171 Early Chinese Bronze Bell
172 The Dying Gaul
175 Ancient Roman Cisterns at Carthage
177 Hannibal
181 Roman Empire and its Alliances, 150 B.C.
Map 183 The Forum, Rome
188 Ruined Coliseum in Tunis
189 Roman Arch at Ctesiphon
190 The Column of Trajan, Rome
193 Glazed Jar of Han Dynasty
197 Vase of Han Dynasty
198 Chinese Vessel in Bronze
199 A Gladiator (contemporary representation)
202 A Street in Pompeii
204 The Coliseum, Rome
206 Interior of Coliseum
206 Mithras Sacrificing a Bull
210 Isis and Horus
211 Bust of Emperor Commodus
212 Early Portrait of Jesus Christ
216 Road from Nazareth to Tiberias
217 Davidโs Tower and Wall of Jerusalem
218 A Street in Jerusalem
219 The Peter and Paul Mosaic at Rome
223 Baptism of Christ (Ivory Panel)
225 Roman Empire and the Barbarians
Map 228 Constantineโs Pillar, Constantinople
229 The Obelisk of Theodosius, Constantinople
231 Head of Barbarian Chief
235 The Church of S. Sophia, Constantinople
239 Roof-work in S. Sophia
240 Justinian and his Court
241 The Rock-hewn Temple at Petra
242 Chinese Earthenware of Tang Dynasty
246 At Prayer in the Desert
250 Looking Across the Sea of Sand
251 Growth of Moslem Power
Map 254 The Moslem Empire
Map 254 The Mosque of Omar, Jerusalem
255 Cairo Mosques
256 Frankish Dominions of Martel
Map 260 Statue of Charlemagne
262 Europe at Death of Charlemagne
Map 264 Crusader Tombs, Exeter Cathedral
268 View of Cairo
269 The Horses of S. Mark, Venice
271 Courtyard in the Alhambra
273 Milan Cathedral (showing spires)
278 A Typical Crusader
280 Burgundian Nobility (Statuettes)
283 Burgundian Nobility (Statuettes)
284 The Empire of Jengis Khan
Map 288 Ottoman Empire before 1453
Map 289 Tartar Horsemen
291 Ottoman Empire, 1566
Map 292 An Early Printing Press
296 Ancient Bronze from Benin
299 Negro Bronze-work
300 Early Sailing Ship (Italian Engraving)
301 Portrait of Martin Luther
305 The Church Triumphant (Italian Majolica work, 1543)
307 Charles V (the Titian Portrait)
311 S. Peterโs, Rome: the High Altar
315 Cromwell Dissolves the Long Parliament
321 The Court at Versailles
323 Sack of a Village, French Revolution
325 Central Europe after Peace of Westphalia, 1648
Map 326 European Territory in America, 1750
Map 330 Europeans Tiger Hunting in India
331 Fall of Tippoo Sultan
332 George Washington
337 The Battle of Bunker Hill
338 The U.S.A., 1790
339 The Trial of Louis XVI
344 Execution of Marie Antoinette
346 Portrait of Napoleon
352 Europe after the Congress of Vienna
Map 353 Early Rolling Stock, Liverpool and Manchester Railway
356 Passenger Train in 1833
356 The Steamboat Clermont
357 Eighteenth Century Spinning Wheel
361 Arkwrightโs Spinning Jenny
361 An Early Weaving Machine
363 An Incident of the Slave Trade
367 Early Factory, in Colebrookdale
368 Carl Marx
372 Electric Conveyor, in Coal Mine
376 Constructional Detail, Forth Bridge
378 American River Steamer
385 Abraham Lincoln
387 Europe, 1848-71
Map 391 Victoria Falls, Zambesi
395 The British Empire, 1815
Map 397 Japanese Soldier, Eighteenth Century
401 A Street in Tokio
403 Overseas Empires of Europe, 1914
Map 406 Gibraltar
407 Street in Hong Kong
408 British Tank in Battle
410 The Ruins of Ypres
411 Modern War: War Entanglements
412 A View in Petersburg under Bolshevik Rule
418 Passenger Aeroplane in Flight
423 A Peaceful Garden in England
426
THE story of our world is a story that is still very imperfectly known. A couple of hundred years ago men possessed the history of little more than the last three thousand years. What happened before that time was a matter of legend and speculation. Over a large part of the civilized world it was believed and taught that the world had been created suddenly in 4004 B.C., though authorities differed as to whether this had occurred in the spring or autumn of that year. This fantastically precise misconception was based upon a too literal interpretation of the Hebrew Bible, and upon rather arbitrary theological assumptions connected therewith. Such ideas have long since been abandoned by religious teachers, and it is universally recognized that the universe in which we live has to all appearances existed for an enormous period of time and possibly for endless time. Of course there may be deception in these appearances, as a room may be made to seem endless by putting mirrors facing each other at either end. But that the universe in which we live has existed only for six or seven thousand years may be regarded as an altogether exploded idea.
The earth, as everybody knows nowadays, is a spheroid, a sphere slightly compressed, orange fashion, with a diameter of nearly 8,000 miles. Its spherical shape has been known at least to a limited number of intelligent people for nearly 2,500 years, but before that time it was supposed to be flat, and various ideas which now seem fantastic were entertained about its relations to the sky and the stars and planets. We know now that it rotates upon its axis (which is about 24 miles shorter than its equatorial diameter) every twenty-four hours, and that this is the cause of the alternations of day and night, that it circles about the sun in a slightly distorted and slowly variable oval path in a year. Its distance from the sun varies between ninety-one and a half millions at its nearest and ninety-four and a half million miles.
(Nebula photographed 1910)
Photo: G. W. Ritchey
About the earth circles a smaller sphere, the moon, at an average distance of 239,000 miles. Earth and moon are not the only bodies to travel round the sun. There are also the planets, Mercury and Venus, at distances of thirty-six and sixty-seven millions of miles; and beyond the circle of the earth and disregarding a belt of numerous smaller bodies, the planetoids, there are Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune at mean distances of 141, 483, 886, 1,782, and 1,793 millions of miles respectively. These figures in millions of miles are very difficult for the mind to grasp. It may help the readerโs imagination if we reduce the sun and planets to a smaller, more conceivable scale.
Note the central core which, through millions of years, is cooling to solidity
Photo: G. W. Ritchey
If, then, we represent our earth as a little ball of one inch diameter, the sun would be a big globe nine feet across and 323 yards away, that is about a fifth of a mile, four or five minutesโ walking. The moon would be a small pea two feet and a half from the world. Between earth and sun there would be the two inner planets, Mercury and Venus, at distances of one hundred and twenty-five and two hundred and fifty yards from the sun. All round and about these bodies there would be emptiness until you came to Mars, a hundred and seventy-five feet beyond the earth; Jupiter nearly a mile away, a foot in diameter; Saturn, a little smaller, two miles off; Uranus four miles off and Neptune six miles off. Then nothingness and nothingness except for small particles and drifting scraps of attenuated vapour for thousands of miles. The nearest star to earth on this scale would be 40,000 miles away.
These figures will serve perhaps to give one some conception of the immense emptiness of space in which the drama of life goes on.
For in all this enormous vacancy of space we know certainly of life only upon the surface of
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