GLOBE (from Lat. globes, ball). A term used to denote any round or spherical body (see SPHERE) , and often used to signify the earth. 'Globes,' or 'the globes,' generally means a pair of artificial globes used as a part of school room apparatus. These are usually hollow spheres of cardboard, coated with a composition of whiting, glue, and oil, upon which paper bear ing certain delineations is laid. On one of the globes—the celestial—are represented the stars, placed in positions corresponding to their actual situation in the sky. If the celestial globe is oriented (i.e. set in a position) correctly. a line drawn from its centre to any star marked on its surface will, if produced to the sky, pass through the actual star. On the other, or ter restrial globe, the distribution of land and water, the divisions and subdivisions of the former, to gether with a few of the most important places, are laid down in positions corresponding to those which they actually occupy on the surface of the earth. The usual mode of making such globes is as follows: A ball of wood or iron is used as a matrix, and a layer of damped paper is carefully and closely placed upon this, without paste, and other layers are successively •pasted over the first one. Ordinary cardboard is thus produced, but instead of being flat, as usual, it forms a spherical shell. When sufficiently thick, this is cut into two hemispheres, the section being made in the line of the intended equator. The hemispheres are then taken off the matrix and again glued together on an axis, and the whiting composition laid on, the outside of which is smoothed and finished to shape in a lathe. The workman has to lay on this composition evenly enough to balance the globe, in order that it may rest at whatever point it is turned. The smooth surface is now marked with the lines of latitude and longitude, and is covered with the paper on which the required geographical or astronomical delineations are engraved. In order to adapt
the plane surface of the paper to the curvature of the sphere, it is printed in pieces, small circles for the Arctic and Antarctic regions, and the rest in lens-shaped gores, varying from 20° to 30° of longitude. Great care is required in lay ing on' these curved pieces, so that their edges shall meet exactly without overlapping. The surface is then colored and strongly varnished, and the globe mounted in its frame and stand.
Globes of india-rubber and gutta-percha have also been made, others of thin paper, to be in flated and suspended in a school-room. Embossed globes show, in exaggerated relief, the elevations and depressions of the earth's surface. Com pound globes, including the celestial and terres trial, have been made with an outer glass sphere for the celestial, and an orrery (q.v.) mechanism to show the varying relative positions of the sun and moon, etc. As school-room apparatus, globes are used for the purpose of illustrating the form and motion of the earth, the position and ap parent motion cif the fixed stars, and for the mechanical solution of a number of problems in geography and practical astronomy. For this purpose, each globe is suspended in a brass ring of somewhat greater diameter, by means of two pins exactly opposite to each other, these pins forming the extremities of the axis round which it revolves, or the north and south poles. This brass circle is then let into a horizontal ring of wood, supported on a stand. The globes in com mon use in schools arc from one to four feet in diameter, but much larger ones have been con structed. Several so-called mammoth globes of the earth and moon have been made, but they have no real value, either for purposes of in struction or for scientific research.