Today's School Subject: Continents and Oceans

The first thing I did for school today was... 

1. Math, 
2. then I did Diagramming, 
3. Memory Verses, 
4. and read all about Daniel in The Antiquities of the Jews, by Josephus. I finished Book 10, and started Book 11. In chapter 11 of Book 10, I read several interesting bits:
   
   1) the explanation of the handwriting on the wall--very much like in the Bible, but still interesting! "And he explained the writing thus: 'MANEH. This, if it be expounded in the Greek language, may signify a Number, because God hath numbered so long a time for thy life, and for thy government, and that there remains but a small portion. THEKEL This signifies a weight, and means that God hath weighed thy kingdom in a balance, and finds it going down already.—PHARES. This also, in the Greek tongue, denotes a fragment. God will therefore break thy kingdom in pieces, and divide it among the Medes and Persians.'"
   
   2) when Daniel was in the lion's den: "So Darius, hoping that God would deliver him, and that he would undergo nothing that was terrible by the wild beasts, bid him bear this accident cheerfully. And when he was cast into the den, he put his seal to the stone that lay upon the mouth of the den, and went his way, but he passed all the night without food and without sleep, being in great distress for Daniel; but when it was day, he got up, and came to the den, and found the seal entire, which he had left the stone sealed withal; he also opened the seal, and cried out, and called to Daniel, and asked him if he were alive. And as soon as he heard the king's voice, and said that he had suffered no harm, the king gave order that he should be drawn up out of the den. Now when his enemies saw that Daniel had suffered nothing which was terrible, they would not own that he was preserved by God, and by his providence; but they said that the lions had been filled full with food, and on that account it was, as they supposed, that the lions would not touch Daniel, nor come to him; and this they alleged to the king. But the king, out of an abhorrence of their wickedness, gave order that they should throw in a great deal of flesh to the lions; and when they had filled themselves, he gave further order that Daniel's enemies should be cast into the den, that he might learn whether the lions, now they were full, would touch them or not. And it appeared plain to Darius, after the princes had been cast to the wild beasts, that it was God who preserved Daniel [[1]] for the lions spared none of them, but tore them all to pieces, as if they had been very hungry, and wanted food. I suppose therefore it was not their hunger, which had been a little before satisfied with abundance of flesh, but the wickedness of these men, that provoked them [to destroy the princes]; for if it so please God, that wickedness might, by even those irrational creatures, be esteemed a plain foundation for their punishment."
   
   I also found an interesting bit in Book 11, Chapter 1:
   "In the first year of the reign of Cyrus which was the seventieth from the day that our people were removed out of their own land into Babylon, God commiserated the captivity and calamity of these poor people, according as he had foretold to them by Jeremiah the prophet, before the destruction of the city, that after they had served Nebuchadnezzar and his posterity, and after they had undergone that servitude seventy years, he would restore them again to the land of their fathers, and they should build their temple, and enjoy their ancient prosperity. And these things God did afford them; for he stirred up the mind of Cyrus, and made him write this throughout all Asia: 'Thus saith Cyrus the king: Since God Almighty hath appointed me to be king of the habitable earth, I believe that he is that God which the nation of the Israelites worship; for indeed he foretold my name by the prophets, and that I should build him a house at Jerusalem, in the country of Judea.'
   
   "This was known to Cyrus by his reading the book which Isaiah left behind him of his prophecies; for this prophet said that God had spoken thus to him in a secret vision: 'My will is, that Cyrus, whom I have appointed to be king over many and great nations, send back my people to their own land, and build my temple.' This was foretold by Isaiah one hundred and forty years before the temple was demolished. Accordingly, when Cyrus read this, and admired the Divine power, an earnest desire and ambition seized upon him to fulfill what was so written; so he called for the most eminent Jews that were in Babylon, and said to them, that he gave them leave to go back to their own country, and to rebuild their city Jerusalem, and the temple of God, for that he would be their assistant, and that he would write to the rulers and governors that were in the neighborhood of their country of Judea, that they should contribute to them gold and silver for the building of the temple, and besides that, beasts for their sacrifices."
   
5. alright you're probably bored silly! :D The other thing I did for school this morning was write one page in my Israelite Girl story. (oh, yes...I did post the first part a while back, didn't I? So maybe I don't have to tell you about that?)

Okay, onto today's main school subject: Continents and Oceans!

The first thing I had to do was find the area of each of the world's oceans, and the total area of them all, telling it in square miles, square kilometers, and, finally, in acres. It was fun--and easy, thanks to this website! :D So here's what I came up with:

#1 Pacific 60,060,894 sq miles - 155,557,000 sq km - 38,439,000,000 acres

#2 Atlantic 29,637,974 sq miles - 76,762,000 sq km - 18,968,303,175 acres

#3 Indian 26,469,620 sq miles - 68,556,000 sq km - 16,940,600,000 acres

#4 Southern 7,848,299 sq miles - 20,327,000 sq km - 5,022,911,312 acres

#5 Arctic 5,427,052 sq miles - 14,056,000 sq km - 3,473,313,246 acres 

TOTAL OCEAN AREA: 129,443,838 sq miles - 335,258,000 sq km - 82,844,100,000 acres

The second thing I had to do was plot a graph to show the relative sizes of all the oceans and continents--easy enough!

Here's the info I entered (with square miles and acres added):

#1 Asia 17,212,048 sq miles - 44,579,000 sq km - 11,015,710,614 acres

#2 Africa 11,608,161 sq miles - 30,065,000 sq km - 7,429,222,967 acres

#3 North America 9,365,294 sq miles - 24,256,000 sq km - 5,993,790,000 acres

#4 South America 6,879,954 sq miles - 17,819,000 sq km - 4,403,170,518 acres

#5 Antarctica 5,100,023 sq miles - 13,209,000 sq km - 3,264,014,688 acres

#6 Europe 3,837,083 sq miles - 9,938,000 sq km - 2,455,733,097 acres

#7 Australia/Oceania 2,967,967 sq miles - 7,687,000 sq km - 1,899,500,000 acres

Yes....so that was my day! How did yours go?

[[1]] It is no way improbable that Daniel's enemies might suggest this reason to the king why the lions did not meddle with him and that they might suspect the king's kindness to Daniel had procured these lions to be so filled beforehand, and that thence it was that he encouraged Daniel to submit to this experiment, in hopes of coming off safe; and that this was the true reason of making so terrible an experiment upon those his enemies, and all their families, Daniel 6:21, though our other copies do not directly take notice of it.]