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With much love, from your affectionate little friend,

HELEN A. KELLER.

On the general subject of geography let Helen also speak for herself in the following paper: --

AN EXERCISE IN GEOGRAPHY.

GEOGRAPHY is a description of the earth's surface, the countries upon it and the people who inhabit it; and it tells us about plants, animals and minerals, which we have never seen, and that are not found in our own country. The name comes from two Greek words, meaning the earth and to describe. I have been studying mathematical geography. I have learned about the form, size and motions of the earth, and of its division by circles, so that we can tell the position of places on it. The earth is a spheroid, -- nearly round, like a sphere, but a little flattened on two opposite sides, like an orange. It has several names. It is sometimes called a globe, a planet, or our world.

Mountains and valleys do not change the form of the earth sufficiently for us to notice it, because the earth is so very large that the mountains are not high enough to make any difference. The earth seems flat to us because it is so large, and we can only see a little of it. When I put grains of sand on a clay ball, they do not affect the shape of the ball.

Some people know the earth is round, because they have travelled around it many times; and when astronomers look at the moon through a telescope, they see a picture of the earth on the moon, and it is always round.

The earth has two motions, a daily rotation upon its axis, and a yearly revolution around the sun. The axis is not real. It is only an imaginary line, passing through the centre of the earth, between the flattened sides. When I put a wire through an orange, so that it connects the flattened sides, and turn the orange around on the wire, the wire is then the axis of the orange. The poles are the ends of the axis. The one which points to the North Star is called the North Pole, and the opposite end is called the South Pole.

The earth as always turning on its axis, from west to east. This motion is called its rotation. It takes the earth twenty-four hours to make a complete rotation. It is the rotation that makes night and day.

The sun appears to rise in the east. The compass is an instrument that has a little magnetic needle, that always points to the north. The four principal points of the compass are west, east, south and north. The points between are north-west, north-east, south-west and south-east.

While the earth is rotating upon its axis, it also revolves around the sun. The path which the earth travels is nearly a circle, and is called the earth's orbit. It takes the earth twelve months, or one year, to make its revolution around the sun, because it is a very long journey. When the earth has made one revolution, it does not stop, but continues to make an annual revolution, year after year. This revolution of the earth is one cause for the change of seasons. The earth does not seem to us to move. That is because we are moving, too, just as fast as the earth; but the wise men say that if we could stand on the moon, and look at the earth through a telescope, we should see that it moved very swiftly.

The earth may have a great many circumferences, -- just as many as there can be lines drawn around it. Its largest circumference passes around the earth at an equal distance from the poles. It measures 25,000 miles. The lines which are dawn parallel to the great circumference are called parallels, and they are used to measure latitude.

The earth's diameter is a straight line, passing through the centre, between two opposite points. The longest diameter would connect two points in the great circumference. Such a line would measure 8,000 miles. The shortest diameter would connect the poles, and such a line measures 26 miles shorter than the longest line. The equator divides the earth into two equal parts, or hemispheres. The horizon is the line where the sky seems to touch the earth. The zenith is the point in the sky just over our heads. Latitude is the distance north or south from the equator. All countries north of the equator are in north latitude, and those south of it are in south latitude. All places near the equator are in no latitude, and places near the poles are said to be in high latitude.

The meridian circles are imaginary lines, passing around the earth from north to south. A meridian is half a circle. Longitude is the distance east or west from a meridian. Longitude and latitude are reckoned by degrees. There are 90 degrees of north and 90 degrees of south latitude, and 180 degrees of west longitude and 180 degrees of east longitude. All places upon the same meridian have the same length of day and night, and have noon at the same time.

Meridians enable us to tell how far one place is from another, and their direction. England and America usually reckon longitude from the meridian at Greenwich; but sometimes Americans reckon it from the meridian at Washington.