n confusion."

"O father!" exclaimed Rollo; "where should we go to,--off into the air?"

"Not exactly into the air, for the air would all fly off, and be
dissipated too; we should fly off into the sky somewhere, some in one
direction, and some in another. You'd be a thousand miles off from the
earth, almost before you would know it."

"Would it kill us, father?" said Nathan.

"Yes," said his father. "I don't know that there would be any shock that
would hurt us, but we should have no air to breathe, and it would be
dark and dismal."

"Dark?" said Rollo. "There would be the sun."

"Yes," said his father, "there would be the sun; and the sun would look
bright enough when you looked directly towards it, but there would be no
general light about you, unless there was air."

The children all paused to reflect upon the strange results which their
father had told them would ensue from a suspension of the earth's
attractive force. Rollo began to think that he had been too hasty in his
wish that there was no gravitation.

"But, father," said he, "the houses would not go off, certainly;--only
the loose things would go."

"Very well; houses are loose."

"O father! they are fastened down."

"How are they fastened down?" asked his father.

"O, they are nailed--and,"

"Not nailed to the ground, certainly," said his father.

"No," said Rollo, laughing; "but then they are built with great stones
and mortar."

"Yes, but there is no mortar under the lowest stones. The foundations
are simply laid upon the ground."

"Well," rejoined Rollo, "I thought they were fastened somehow or other."

"No," said his father; "they dig the cellar, and only just lay the
foundations upon the ground, without any fastening. The earth holds them
in place."

"Well, father," said Rollo, "that is what I meant, when I said we could
not stand up straight. I meant the houses. I read in a book that houses
would be blown away, if the gravitation did not hold them down."

Here Rollo's father had a hearty laugh; and he told Rollo that he
thought that was rather wide shooting. Rollo wanted to know what he was
laughing at; and Nathan asked him what he meant by wide shooting.

"Why," said he, "Rollo, you undertook to explain to us, from your stores
of knowledge, what the effects of a suspension of gravitation would be;
and, in attempting to tell that houses would be in danger of being blown
away, you came no nearer than to tell us that boys could