In the words of a well-known modern English historian, _'The floor of heaven, inlaid with stars, has sunk back into an infinite abyss of immeasurable space; and the firm earth itself, unfixed from its foundations, is seen to be but a small atom in the awful easiness of the universe.'_[4] The whole position, indeed, is reversed.

The skies once seemed to pay the earth homage, and to serve it with light and shelter.

Now they do nothing, so far as the imagination is concerned, but spurn and dwarf it.

And when we come to the details of the earth's surface itself, the case is just the same.

It, in its extent, has grown little and paltry to us.