George Fishel, age of Clarksville, Tenn., or his question:

What are the world hemispheres?

The second part of this word, which is sphere, means globe or ball¬shaped. When we find hems tacked onto the front of a word it means half. So hemisphere means half a sphere. Our world, of course, is a sphere and a hemisphere is half of the world.

We can divide the world into halves in all sorts of ways. But when it comes to geography, we divide it at the waist, which is the equator. The hemisphere in which we live is the northern hemisphere because it includes everything north of the equator. Everything south of the equator is the southern hemisphere. We can also divide the globe in half from pole to pole. Then we have an eastern and western hemisphere. The New World, of course; is in the western hemisphere.