These patches which look like shadows are really land and are called by a long name: continents. These continents have names, and if their names were printed across them in letters a thousand miles high—which they are not—so that the man with a spy-glass could read them, he would read on one side of the World NORTH AMERICA //SOUTH AMERICA. And if he waited until the World turned round, until the other side showed in the sunlight as I've seen the World do in “the movies,” he would read on this continent EUROPE and on that continent ASIA and on the other continent AFRICA, and the smallest one would have the longest name, AUSTRALIA. At the very bottom would be ANTARCTICA.

We call one side of a piece of money “the head,” because there is usually the head of some one on that side, and the other side we call “the tail,” as that is opposite from the head. It would be easy to tell which side of the World was which if we could call one side heads and the other tails. But there are no heads or tails on the World一only these queer shadows一so we use two big words instead of “heads” and “tails” to tell which side of the World is which. We call one side the “Western Hemisphere” and the other side we call the “Eastern Hemisphere.” Whew! Why don't they call it something easy?—well, let's call it “Half-a-Ball,” for that is what Hemisphere means.