Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

in the evening, we look for him in a third place.

The place where the sun is first seen in the morning is called the East;that where he is at twelve o'clock in the day is the South;-in the evening we see him in the West; and the place opposite to the South is called the North. The sun is never seen in the northern part of the sky by people who live as far north as we do.

A "map" is a picture of the world, or of some portion of it; and if we paste a map of the world upon a round ball, so that the picture shall follow the shape of the real world, we have what we call a "globe."

A flat map, however, hanging against the wall, or lying upon the table, will help you very well to find out the different parts of the world. The top of the map is the North; the bottom of it is the South; the East is on your right hand, and the West is on your left hand.

You can see, marked on the map of the world, for large portions into

82

THE WORLD AND THE MAP.

which it is divided. These are named -Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. We call these the Quarters of the world.

Besides these you will see below Asia, on the east side, a great country, called Australia. This is an island, that is, it has water all round it; and there are many more islands near to it.

Europe and Asia are joined to each other. Africa is joined to Asia just in one place, or else Africa would be an island, like Australia. The great wide sea divides America from the other quarters of the world.

America, you see, stretches from north to south, almost from the top of the map to the bottom of it. Europe reaches far to the north, and so does Asia; but Africa is in the middle part of the map, and does not stretch out far, either to the north or to the south.

[blocks in formation]

THE BROOM PLANT.

THE Broom is a plant found in most parts of this country.

Boys and girls, when running over the commons or waste grounds, if they use their eyes, will be almost sure to see clusters of green bushes, bearing pretty bright yellow flowers, shaped like the blossom of the pea.

This plant, besides growing on commons or heaths, is also to be seen on many sunny banks; and, in the West of England, in places quite near to the

sea.

A learned man, named Linnæus, who lived a hundred years ago, in the cold

northern land named Sweden, and knew all about most trees, and plants, and flowers, had never seen the broom in his own country.

When he first saw it, he thought it prettier than any other wild flower he had ever seen, and kneeled down and thanked the Creator, for having made a thing so beautiful.

This lover of nature wished to make the broom plant grow in his own country, for he saw, that in our land, it was hardy enough to bear both the salt air and sharp winds; but he found that it could not be reared out of doors in Sweden, and both in Russia and Sweden it is now nursed in hothouses.

Here, even when the face of the earth is hidden by the snows of winter, and keen frosts have nipped the last flowers of the year from their stems, still the bonny broom lifts up its golden head.

Long ago, as you may perhaps have read, a race of English kings took its name from this plant.

Its Latin name was Planta-genista

the broom plant. From this came the name Plantagenet, which was given to Prince Henry, son of the Empress Matilda, and the first of the Plantagenet kings of England.

It may, perhaps, seem strange to you, that a king should take his name from a flower; but, in days gone by, names were sometimes given for very odd

reasons.

There were then, as there are now, many people, whose whole work was to fight. They wore caps, or helmets, made of metal, with pieces of metal to let down in front; this falling piece partly hid the face, and saved it from being wounded by the sharp pointed arrows, then used in war.

That the men, fighting on either side, might know their leaders, it was the custom for them to wear some "badge" or mark, in a part of the dress where it could easily be seen.

This Prince Henry, of whom I have spoken, wore a sprig of the broom plant in his helmet, and was named from this Plant-a-gen-et.

« AnteriorContinuar »