"A great many times bigger than our
whole earth."
"Then how do you know but they are dark islands in the ocean?"
"For several reasons," said the doctor, looking gravely funny;
"one of which reasons is, that we can see the deep ragged
edges of the holes, and that these edges join together again."
"But there could not be holes in _our_ ocean?" said Daisy.
Dr. Sandford gave a good long grave look at her, set aside his
empty plate which had held raspberries, and took a chair. He
talked to her now with serious, quiet earnest, as if she had
been a much older person.
"Our ocean, Daisy, you will remember, is an ocean of fluid
matter. The ocean of flame which surrounds the sun is gaseous
matter — or a sort of ocean of air, in a state of
incandescence. This does not touch the sun, but floats round
it, upon or above another atmosphere of another kind — like
the way in which our clouds float in the air over our heads.
You know how breaks come and go in the clouds; so you can
imagine that this luminous covering of the sun parts in
places, and shows the sun through, and then closes up again."
"Is that the way it is?" said Daisy.
"Even so."
"Dr. Sandford, you said a word just now I did not understand.
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