The actual facts, revealed by many centuries of observation and reasoning, are that the earth is a rotating globe, turning once on its axis every twenty-four hours and revolving once round the sun every three hundred and sixty-five days. The sun is also a globe, 1,300,000 times larger than the earth, but so hot that it glows with intense brilliance, while the substances of which it consists are kept in a gaseous or vaporous state. Besides the earth there are seven other principal globes, or planets, which revolve round the sun, at various distances and in various periods, and, in addition to these, there are hundreds of smaller bodies, called asteroids or small planets. There are also many singular bodies called comets, and swarms of still smaller ones called meteors, which likewise revolve round the sun.