eath; and still the sunshine creeps
slowly over it, as regularly as when Isaac first set it up.

Yet we must not say that the sun-dial has lasted longer than its maker;
for Isaac Newton will exist, long after the dial--yea, and long after the
sun itself--shall have crumbled to decay.

Isaac possessed a wonderful faculty of acquiring knowledge by the simplest
means. For instance, what method do you suppose he took, to find out the
strength of the wind? You will never guess how the boy could compel that
unseen, inconstant, and ungovernable wanderer, the wind, to tell him the
measure of its strength. Yet nothing can be more simple. He jumped against
the wind; and by the length of his jump, he could calculate the force of a
gentle breeze, a brisk gale, or a tempest. Thus, even in his boyish
sports, he was continually searching out the secrets of philosophy.

Not far from his grandmother's residence there was a windmill, which
operated on a new plan. Isaac was in the habit of going thither
frequently, and would spend whole hours in examining its various parts.
While the mill was at rest, he pryed into its internal machinery. When its
broad sails were set in motion by the wind, he watched the process by
which the mill-stones were made to revolve, and crush the grain that was
put into the hopper. After gaining a thorough knowledge of its
construction, he was observed to be unusually busy with his tools.

It was not long before his grandmother, and all the neighborhood, knew
what Isaac had been about. He had constructed a model of the windmill.
Though not so large, I suppose as one of the box-traps which boys set to
catch squirrels, yet every part of the mill and its machinery was
complete. Its little sails were neatly made of linen, and whirled round
very swiftly when the mill was placed in a draught of air. Even a puff of
wind from Isaac's mouth, or from a pair of bellows, was sufficient to set
the sails in motion. And--what was most curious--if a handful of grains of
wheat were put into the little hopper, they would soon be converted into
snow-white flour.

Isaac's playmates were enchanted with his new windmill. They thought that
nothing so pretty, and so wonderful, had ever been seen in the whole
world.

"But, Isaac," said one of them, "you have forgotten one thing that belongs
to a mill."

"What is that?" asked Isaac; for he supposed, that, from the roof of the
mill to its foundation, he had forgotten nothing.

"W