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 LUNAR SCIENCE.
 
 LUNAR SCIENCE 
 
 ANCIENT AND MODERN. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. TIMOTHY HARLEY, F.R.A.S. 
 
 AUTHOR OF " MOON LORE," ETC. 
 
 " Heaven's ebon vault, 
 Studded with stars unutterably bright, 
 Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls, 
 Seems like a canopy which love has spread 
 To curtain her sleeping world." 
 
 Shelley's "Queen Mab" iv. 
 
 " The man who has seen the rising moon break out of the clouds at midnight has 
 been present like an archangel at the creation of light and of the world." 
 
 Emerson's " Essay on History." 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 SWAN SONNENSCHEIN, LOWREY & CO., 
 
 PATERNOSTER SQUARE. 
 
 1886.
 
 Butler & Tanner. 
 
 The Selwood Printing Works, 
 
 Frome, and London.
 
 NIGHT IN THE DESERT. 
 
 " How beautiful is night ! 
 A dewy freshness fills the silent air ; 
 No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain, 
 
 Breaks the serene of heaven : 
 In full-orbed glory yonder moon Divine 
 Rolls through the dark blue depths : 
 Beneath her steady ray 
 The desert circle spreads, 
 Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky. 
 How beautiful is night ! " 
 
 Southey's " Thalaba." 
 
 THE MIDNIGHT OCEAN. 
 
 " The mighty moon she sits above, 
 Encircled with a zone of love, 
 A zone of dim and tender light 
 That makes her wakeful eye more bright : 
 She seems to shine with a sunny ray, 
 And the night looks like a mellow'd day ! 
 The gracious mistress of the main 
 Hath now an undisturbed reign, 
 And from her silent throne looks down, 
 As upon children of her own, 
 On the waves that lend their gentle breast 
 In gladness for her couch of rest ! " 
 
 Wilson's "fs/e of Palms.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. INTRODUCTION . . . . '. . i 
 
 II. THE MOON'S DISTANCE . ' . . . 8 
 
 III. THE MOON'S SIZE . .' . . .17 
 
 IV. THE MOON'S SHAPE . . . . .26 
 V. THE MOON'S SUBSTANCE . ... -30 
 
 VI. THE MOON'S FORMATION . . . -38 
 
 VII. THE MOON'S CONDITION . . . .44 
 
 VIII. THE MOON'S SURFACE . . . . .51 
 
 IX. THE MOON'S MOTIONS . . ., . -57
 
 LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 i. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " By Thy command, the moon, as daylight fades, 
 Lifts her broad circle in the deep'ning shades ; 
 Array'd in glory, and enthroned in light, 
 She breaks the solemn terrors of the night ; 
 Sweetly inconstant in her varying flame, 
 She changes still, another, yet the same ! 
 Now in decrease, by slow degrees she shrouds 
 Her fading lustre in a veil of clouds ; 
 Now at increase, her gathering beams display 
 A blaze of light, and give a paler day ; 
 Ten thousand stars adorn her glittering train, 
 Fall when she falls, and rise with her again, 
 And o'er the deserts of the sky unfold 
 Their burning spangles of sidereal gold : 
 Through the wide heavens she moves serenely bright, 
 Queen of the gay attendants of the night" ' 
 
 ' Behold ! a new spectacle of wonder ! The moon is 
 making her entry on the eastern sky. See her rising in 
 clouded majesty ! opening, as it were, and asserting her 
 
 B
 
 LUNAR SCIENCE 
 
 original commission to rule over the night : all grand and 
 stately, but somewhat sullied in her aspect. However, she 
 brightens as she advances, and grows clearer as she climbs 
 higher, till at length her silver loses all its dross ; she unveils 
 her peerless light, and becomes the beauty of heaven, the 
 glory of the stars (Eccles. xliii. 9), delighting every eye, and 
 cheering the whole world with the brightness of her appear- 
 ance and the softness of her splendours." 2 
 
 THIS passage from a once noted but now 
 neglected book, eloquently directs us to the 
 sphere of our present inquiries. Whatever 
 our degree in the artificial scale of human 
 society, whatever our profession in the arduous 
 service of human toil, we all are more or less 
 moved by " the divinity that stirs within us " 
 to feel an interest in the edifices of the Divine 
 Architect and the embellishments of the Divine 
 Artist. Sir George Cornewall Lewis said truly : 
 " The history of astronomy has numerous 
 points of contact with the general history of 
 mankind ; and it concerns questions which 
 interest a wider class than professed astrono- 
 mers, for whose benefit the existing histories 
 have been mainly composed." 3 No scripture- 
 whether spiritual or scientific, which is of public 
 interest, ought to be "of private interpretation." 
 As an instinctively religious being, man is con-
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 stitutionally concerned in the sublime science 
 which, more perhaps than any other department 
 of physics, has enabled him to look " through 
 nature up to nature's God." If "an undevout 
 astronomer is mad," the converse is at least 
 measurably true : unastronomic piety is mad. 
 For if science without devotion be defective, 
 because the spiritual is the necessary inspiration 
 of the material, devotion without science is also 
 defective, because the material is the necessary 
 embodiment of the spiritual. Science without 
 religion is a corpse ; religion without science is 
 a ghost. Immanuel Kant, in a splendid sen- 
 tence oft quoted, says : " Two things fill the 
 mind with ever new and increasing admiration 
 and awe, the oftener and the more steadily we 
 reflect on them the starry heavens above and 
 the moral law within." 4 Let both be com- 
 bined God in creation and God in conscience : 
 we shall then have described a circle, or two 
 concentric circles, within which will be embraced 
 the whole compass of human knowledge. Let 
 both be followed the light of stars, which 
 Carlyle calls "street lamps of the city of God," 
 and the light of conscience, which Butler calls 
 " the candle of the Lord within us : " we shall
 
 LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 then no longer " walk in darkness, but have 
 the light of life." An eminent member of the 
 Institute of France concludes a work on 
 astronomy with some valuable words. After 
 saying that "all truly great men have been 
 believers in God, " M. Rambosson adds : " It 
 seems to me that all these considerations tend 
 to demonstrate that the bond which in ancient 
 times united astronomical science and religion 
 has its origin in the very nature of man, and 
 his necessary relations with the universe ; that 
 the idea of causation leads up to the recognition 
 of the Supreme Being as a rigorous and in- 
 evitable outcome of the laws of the mind ; and 
 that the universe, being His natural expression, 
 renders Him present to our sentiment." 5 
 Science and religion God hath joined together : 
 he who would put them asunder is the friend of 
 neither, but the enemy of both. 
 
 Of all the heavenly bodies none has a 
 greater attraction upon our thought and atten- 
 tion than that beautiful satellite of our own 
 earth, which from the earliest period has been 
 to men a world of wonder and worship, 
 speculation and study. It was the first object 
 of Galileo's " incredible delight," for it was :
 
 INTROD UCTION. 
 
 " The moon, whose orb 
 Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views 
 At evening from the top of Fiesole' ; 
 Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands, 
 Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe." 
 
 From that telescopic observation of " the 
 starry Galileo," when, to use his own words, 
 the moon appeared as near as if it had been 
 distant only two semi -diameters of the earth, 
 is dated the new era of modern selenography. 
 For as Mr. Neison says, " Galileo on turning 
 his telescope to the moon may be regarded as 
 the first to substitute facts for conjecture with 
 regard to the condition of the moon's surface." 6 
 Subsequent observers, through improved instru- 
 ments, have unremittingly peered into its 
 shining face, and to-day our acquaintance with 
 the moon is so intimate that it is no longer 
 a terra incognita, but a land of whose past 
 history and present condition we expect to be 
 fully informed at no very distant future. In 
 the words of Sir John Herschel, " The 
 physical constitution of the moon is better 
 known to us than that of any other heavenly 
 body. By the aid of telescopes we discern 
 inequalities in its surface, which can be no 
 other than mountains and valleys." 7
 
 LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 As evidence of rapid progress in seleno- 
 graphy, we may refer to those marvellous maps 
 of the moon which have been produced in 
 Germany, where science in every department 
 has made astonishing advance. Beer and 
 Madler's chart of Der Mond, which may be 
 seen in the British Museum, measures thirty- 
 seven inches in diameter, and is said to indicate 
 the positions of 7,735 lunar craters. 8 And Dr. 
 Schmidt's map, which as a whole is between 
 six and seven feet in diameter, is divided into 
 twenty-five sections, all photo-lithographed from 
 the original sheet. This chart marks the 
 positions of no less than 32,856 craters on the 
 moon. 9 From the days of Galileo until the 
 present the telescope has revealed wonders ; 
 but now, in addition to micrometers and other 
 astronomical aids to the power of the human 
 eye, we have the assistance of lunar photo- 
 graphy, which, in such able hands as those of 
 Mr. De la Rue of London, and Mr. Ruther- 
 furd of New York, will furnish us with portraits 
 of the moon, increasingly exquisite, and with 
 lunar maps far more accurate than are any of 
 our maps of the earth. Mr. De la Rue has 
 already produced a fine photograph of the
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 moon, 38 inches in diameter; and the "Moon 
 Committee " of the British Association has 
 taken up the work in earnest. Such workers 
 are worthy of high honour. Astronomers rank 
 among the ordained ministers and official 
 interpreters of nature : and their labours merit 
 the admiration of all who believe in the Bible 
 of Creation, which reveals not only unvarying 
 law written in letters of unsullied light, but also 
 lessons of goodness in greatness, which through 
 the expositions of science are rendered intel- 
 ligible to all.
 
 II. 
 
 THE MOON'S DISTANCE. 
 
 " Daughter of heaven, fair art thou ! the silence of thy 
 face is pleasant ! Thou comest forth in loveliness. The 
 stars attend thy blue course in the east. The clouds re- 
 joice in thy presence, O moon ! They brighten their dark- 
 brown sides. Who is like thee in heaven, light of the 
 silent night ? The stars are ashamed in thy presence 
 They turn away their sparkling eyes. Whither dost thou 
 retire from thy course, when the darkness of thy counte- 
 nance grows ? Hast thou thy hall, like Ossian ? Dwellest 
 thou in the shadow of grief? Have thy sisters fallen from 
 heaven ? Are they who rejoice with thee, at night, no 
 more ? Yes ! they have fallen, fair light ! and thou dost 
 often retire to mourn. But thou thyself shalt fail one night, 
 and leave thy blue path in heaven. The stars will then lift 
 their heads : they, who were ashamed in thy presence, will 
 rejoice. Thou art now clothed with thy brightness. Look 
 from thy gates in the sky. Burst the cloud, O wind ! that 
 the daughter of night may look forth, that the shaggy 
 mountains may brighten, and the ocean roll its white waves 
 in light." I0 
 
 SUPPOSE that we set out upon an imaginary 
 journey to the moon. We shall have to pass 
 through a cold medium ; for the learned have
 
 THE MOON'S DISTANCE, 
 
 calculated, upon certain data, that the temper- 
 ature of space is about ninety degrees below 
 zero. We are refrigerated till we shiver at the 
 thought. Our goal is a long way off; nearly 
 two hundred and forty thousand miles. This 
 is in round numbers, which seem the right 
 numbers in speaking of the spheres. Messrs. 
 Nasmyth and Carpenter assign 238,790 miles 
 from the earth as the moon's mean position ; 
 while Mr. Norman Lockyer, still more precise, 
 says that the moon revolves "at an average 
 distance of only 238,793 miles, which is equal 
 to about ten times round our planet." IX This 
 measurement is done by determining the 
 moon's parallax by means of trigonometry. 
 But Sir G. B. Airy mentions another method, 
 which, if not so exact in its results, is more 
 easily understood and verified. He says, 
 " There is a phenomenon of the moon observed 
 frequently, in the interpretation of which there 
 can be no mistake, namely, eclipses of the 
 moon. We see that the moon, in her motions 
 through the stars, dips into something which 
 obscures her. There cannot be a doubt that it 
 is the shadow of the earth. The moon goes 
 into this shadow on one side, and comes out of
 
 LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 it on the other side. The time which the 
 moon occupies in passing through this shadow 
 is, roughly speaking, four hours. The moon, 
 then, is at such a distance that in passing 
 through the shadow of an object as big as the 
 earth, she is occupied only four hours. The 
 moon, therefore, in her course describes the 
 breadth of the earth in four hours ; in one day 
 she describes six times the breadth ; and as 
 thirty days is a rough measure for the time of 
 her revolution, she describes in one revolution 
 1 80 times the breadth of the earth, and 
 therefore the whole circumference of the moon's 
 orbit is something about 180 times the breadth 
 of the earth, and the diameter of the moon's 
 orbit is about 60 times the breadth of the earth. 
 Therefore the moon is distant from us by 
 about thirty times the earth's breadth." I2 The 
 equatorial diameter of the earth we know is 
 41,848,380 feet, or just under 7,926 miles, 
 which multiplied by 30 gives the result which 
 is not so very far from right. But the orbit 
 of the moon being an ellipse, and not a circle, 
 this distance varies with her motions. During 
 the perigee, when, as the word means, she is 
 nearer to the earth, and appears larger, she is
 
 THE MOON'S DISTANCE. 
 
 then within 225,719 miles; but when in apogee, 
 or away from the earth, and seemingly smaller, 
 she is then 251,947 miles distant: a difference 
 of 26,228 miles. Two hundred and forty 
 thousand miles is a long journey, but it is 
 wonderfully diminished by comparison with the 
 space which separates us from our companion 
 planets, to say nothing of the distances of the 
 fixed stars. Venus, our nearest sister planet, 
 is never nearer than 24,000,000 miles, or a 
 hundred times the distance of the moon. As 
 Dr. Leitch says, "While Neptune is a mile 
 distant, the moon is, on the same scale, only 
 about six inches. And man, even when he 
 could form no idea of the real distance, ever 
 looked to the moon with a familiarity which he 
 could feel towards no other heavenly body." 13 
 If a viaduct or suspension bridge could be built 
 across the intermediate ocean of space, we 
 might walk to the moon ; but at the rate of 
 four miles an hour, we should require but a 
 little less than seven years. With a good 
 horse, trotting two hundred and forty miles a 
 day, we could get to our destination within 
 three years ; while with a railway, and such a 
 train as the " Flying Dutchman," doing sixty
 
 LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 miles an hour, we should gain the terminus 
 within six months. No time is allowed in this 
 reckoning for refreshment : but, of course, on 
 such a heavenly journey, we should be above 
 all earthly things. The astronomical Arago 
 has a much quicker method of locomotion than 
 any which we have suggested. He says : "It 
 is known that a 24 pounder traverses, at the 
 utmost, 1,312 feet per second, at the instant of 
 quitting the cannon's mouth. This velocity is 
 equivalent to 2\ miles in ten seconds, to 15 
 miles in a minute, to 900 miles in an hour, to 
 21,600 miles in a day. Hence a cannon ball 
 would pass from the earth to the moon in 
 eleven days." 14 That would be "shooting the 
 moon" with a vengeance! Indubitably, it 
 would be quick travelling ; and if we were 
 rolled up in that sort of conveyance we should 
 arrive in haste, and take the immortal man in 
 the moon by surprise. Such express speed 
 would even surpass that American train which, 
 according to one of the latest transatlantic 
 stories, was rushing along so rapidly, that a 
 passenger who thrust his head out of the 
 window to salute a female friend at one station, 
 kissed an old coloured woman at the next 
 station instead.
 
 THE MOON'S DISTANCE. 13 
 
 While we are making for the moon, we may 
 compare notes with the ancients. Eratos- 
 thenes, the Alexandrian astronomer, who died 
 B.C. 194, and who must be ever memorable as 
 the first measurer of the earth's magnitude, said 
 that the moon was distant from our globe 
 78.000 stadia ten times multiplied. The puzzle 
 is to ascertain the precise length of a stadium. 
 We can attain to only an approximation of its 
 value by the following method. Eratosthenes, 
 whose observations were made by means of 
 the shadow of a gnomon, measured an arc of 
 the terrestrial meridian, whose result gave the 
 circumference of a great circle as equal to 
 250,000 stadia in length. Now the earth's 
 circumference is known to be about 25,000 
 miles, whence we conclude that a stadium is 
 the tenth of a mile. According to this calcu- 
 lation, Eratosthenes believed the moon to be 
 78,000 miles from the earth : a little less than 
 a third of its real distance. The Brahmins of 
 India erred in another direction, for they said 
 that the sun was nearer to the earth than the 
 moon, probably because the sun was known to 
 be hotter and brighter. To this day the 
 Purdnas of India teach that "the moon is
 
 i 4 LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 twice as far from the earth as the sun." I3 
 Flammarion cites an old Italian system of as- 
 tronomy which gave the moon's distance "from 
 the centre of the earth to the inner side of the 
 heaven of the moon " as 107,936 miles. This 
 author also states that to the Egyptians the 
 sun was only 369 and the moon 246 miles 
 away. l6 Last century Dr. Rogers, writing of 
 the moon, estimated that " her distance from 
 the earth must be 216,004 miles, which is 
 23,996 miles less than the general estimation." 17 
 Enough has now been said to show that in 
 respect of the moon's distance we " understand 
 more than the ancients " ; that correct calcula- 
 tion of celestial intervals is an accomplishment 
 of that " modern thought " which some modern 
 talkers, without thought, idly abuse ; and that 
 we are doubtless orthometrical within a very 
 little when we give the mean distance be- 
 tween the centres of the earth and moon as 
 238,793 English miles. Telescopes with a 
 magnifying power of 1,000 will bring the moon 
 within 240 miles of our observation ; while a 
 power of 2,400 times, if it were practicable, 
 would enable us to see the moon from the earth 
 as we may see Mont Blanc from Lyons, a
 
 THE MOON'S DISTANCE. 15 
 
 distance of 100 miles. Evidently man has an 
 affinity with the infinite. 
 
 " I was yesterday about sunset walking in 
 the open fields, till the night insensibly fell 
 upon me. As I was surveying the moon walk- 
 ing in her brightness and taking her progress 
 among the constellations, a thought rose in me 
 which I believe very often perplexes and dis- 
 turbs men of serious and contemplative natures. 
 David himself fell into it in that reflection. 
 ' When I consider the heavens the work of Thy 
 fingers, the moon and the stars which Thou 
 hast ordained, what is man that Thou art mind- 
 ful of him, and the son of man that Thou re- 
 gardest him ! ' In the same manner, when I 
 considered that infinite host of stars, or, to 
 speak more philosophically, of suns, which were 
 then shining upon me, with those innumerable 
 sets of planets or worlds, which were moving 
 round their respective suns ; when I still en- 
 larged the idea, and supposed another heaven 
 of suns and worlds rising still above this which 
 we discovered, and these still enlightened by 
 a superior firmament of luminaries, which are 
 planted at so great a distance that they may 
 appear to the inhabitants of the former as the
 
 1 6 LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 stars do to us ; in short, whilst I pursued this 
 thought, I could not but reflect on that little in- 
 significant figure which I myself bore amidst 
 the immensity of God's works." l8
 
 III. 
 
 THE MOON'S SIZE. 
 
 " The moon is up, and yet it is not night 
 Sunset divides the sky with her a sea 
 Of glory streams along the Alpine height 
 Of blue Friuli's mountains ; heaven is free 
 From clouds, but of all colours seems to be, 
 Melted to one vast Iris of the West, 
 
 Where the day joins the past Eternity; 
 While, on the other hand, meek Dian's crest 
 Floats through the azure air an island of the blest ! " x 
 
 HAVING passed "from the earth to the moon," 
 we might follow M. Jules Verne in his sequel, 
 and journey " around the moon," to take her 
 dimensions. It would be cruel to torture the 
 weary minds of readers with many figures, 
 therefore it may be sufficient to state that the 
 moon's diameter, which is the length of a hypo- 
 thetical line drawn through its rotund body, 
 is, according to Flammarion, 2,153 miles, and, 
 according to Nasmyth and Carpenter, 2,160. 
 The former gives the total surface as 14,568,000
 
 1 8 LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 square miles, and the latter give its area as 
 14,657,000 square miles, one-half of which, or 
 7,328,500 miles, is the area of the hemisphere 
 presented to our earth. Further, to show that 
 this work of lunar mensuration has been done 
 thoroughly, we are told that the volume of the 
 moon contains 5,276,000,000 of cubic miles of 
 solid matter. Still, the moon's diameter is less 
 than a third of that of our own great globe, and 
 its bulk scarcely more than a forty-ninth part 
 of that of the earth. As a knowing German 
 puts it, " The surface of the earth is about 
 fourteen times larger than that of the moon, 
 and, in solid contents, is fifty times greater. 
 To an observer in the moon the earth must 
 appear 13-5 times larger than the moon appears 
 to us." 20 The late president of the Royal 
 Astronomical Society tells us that " the mass of 
 the moon is about the 8 1 i part of that of the 
 earth, or, it would require eighty-one moons to 
 make a globe of corresponding weight to that 
 of the world in which we live." 2I It may 
 interest some to learn that the earth's weight 
 is 6,069,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons ! This 
 excludes the air, which weighs less than a 
 millionth part of the earth.
 
 THE MOON'S SIZE. 19 
 
 Of course, compared with the sun, the moon 
 is a very small taper indeed : the diameter of 
 the day-star being over four hundred times that 
 of the night-light. This may be inferred from 
 the fact that they appear equally large, though 
 the distance of the sun is about four hundred 
 times that of the moon. In fact, it would re- 
 quire a million and a half moons to equal in 
 magnitude one sun. An astronomical author 
 informs us that " if the whole sky were covered 
 with full moons they would scarcely make 
 daylight, for Bouger's experiments give the 
 brilliancy of the full moon as only 300 !ooo tnat 
 of the sun." 22 Only fancy 300,000 full moons ! 
 A hundred times more moons than there are 
 stars visible to the naked eye ! What an il- 
 lumination ! The heavens could not contain 
 them. Yet their united lustre would barely 
 equal the resplendent sovereign of the system ! 
 An American astronomer augments the dis- 
 parity by a novel experiment. " Professor 
 G. P. Bond compared the light of the moon 
 with that of the sun by placing in the sun's 
 light a glass globe with a silvered surface, and 
 comparing the brightness of the reflected image 
 of the sun with an artificial light, and after-
 
 LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 wards comparing the light of the full moon 
 with the same standard. He hence inferred 
 that the light of the sun was 470,000 times 
 that of the full moon." 23 And another 
 American astronomer, Professor Newcomb, of 
 Washington, says that " the most careful deter- 
 mination yet made is by Zollner, who finds the 
 sun to give 619,000 times as much light as the 
 full moon. This result is probably quite near 
 the truth." 24 We are dazzled and dazed with 
 the effulgence of such wondrous worlds. And 
 when we further consider the moon, with its 
 diameter of over 2,000 miles, and its circumfer- 
 ence of 6,000 miles, travelling round the earth 
 at the rate of 2,000 miles an hour, while at the 
 same time it is carried forward with us round 
 the sun in our vast orbit of 600,000,000 of miles 
 at the rate of 68,000 miles an hour, our won- 
 der glows with worship, and admiring science 
 becomes an adoring psalm. 
 
 It will be interesting to inquire what the 
 ancients knew of the moon's size. Thales, 
 the founder of the Ionic school of philosophy, 
 B.C. 600, made some attempt to measure the 
 apparent magnitude of the moon. Anaxi- 
 mander, his disciple, said it was a circle nine-
 
 THE MOON'S SIZE. 
 
 teen times bigger than the earth ; Parmenides, 
 that it was equal in brightness to the sun. 
 Aristarchus of Samos, a diligent and philo- 
 sophical astronomer, endeavoured to accurately 
 estimate the magnitudes of the sun and moon. 
 He flourished about B.C. 276, and "made the 
 diameter of the moon to that of the earth 
 greater than 43 to 108, and less than 19 to 
 60 : this last determination is not far from the 
 truth." 2S Other Greeks made other guesses. 
 " One of them said that the moon was as large 
 as that part of Greece once known as the Pelo- 
 ponnesus, but now called the Morea, and was 
 laughed at for his boldness." 2fi Brave old 
 Greek ! and he was no other than Anaxagoras 
 of Clazomence, the master at whose feet sat 
 Socrates, and the man to whom science and 
 philosophy were of higher worth than wealth, 
 or honour, or life. He was accused of impiety 
 at Athens, and though defended by Pericles, 
 was condemned to death. When asked whether 
 his body should be carried back to his own 
 country, he answered, " No, for the road which 
 leads to the other side of the grave is as long 
 from one place as another ! " As a recent 
 author says, " Anaxagoras is interesting as
 
 LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 being the first martyr of science. He was 
 accused of impiety at Athens for teaching 
 that the moon, then regarded, with the other 
 heavenly bodies, as divine, was of the same 
 nature as the earth, traversed by hills and 
 valleys, and probably inhabited." 2? Twenty- 
 three centuries have elapsed since Anaxagoras 
 suffered, and we have not heard of the last 
 martyr of science yet ! But to return to the 
 moon's dimensions. The Stoics held that it 
 was bigger than the earth, and the Peripatetics, 
 with all their "walking about," arrived no 
 nearer to the truth. Lucretius, among the 
 Romans, held that the moon was " of no larger 
 a dimension than she appears to our eyes as we 
 observe her," which opinion displays a singular 
 ignorance or forgetfulness of the rules of per- 
 spective, an art not unknown to the ancients. 
 The Hebrews were a religious people, and not 
 scientific. We shall therefore look in vain for 
 any effort on their part to work out the prob- 
 lems of nature. Their allusions to the hosts 
 of heaven are numerous and often highly 
 poetical, but not at all philosophical. For 
 example, on the point in question : " The Tal- 
 mud states that when the sun and moon were
 
 THE MOON'S SIZE. 23 
 
 first created they were of equal size. The 
 moon became jealous of the sun, and she was 
 reduced in bulk. The moon then appealed to 
 God, and she was consoled by the promise that 
 Jacob, Samuel, and David were to be likewise 
 small. As, however, some injustice seemed 
 to have been committed, God ordained ' a sin- 
 offering ' on every new moon, because the moon 
 had become less than the sun." 28 The Bud- 
 dhist doctrine is that "the disc of the moon is 
 40 yojanas in diameter, and 147 in circumfer- 
 ence." 29 But what is a yojana ? is another 
 philological knot. Mr. Hardy tells us that 
 " the length of the yojana is a disputed point. 
 By the Singhalese it is regarded as about six- 
 teen miles in length, but by the Hindus of the 
 continent as much shorter." 3 From Horace 
 Wilson, the Sanskrit scholar, we learn that a 
 yojana is " a measure of distance equal to four 
 kro'sas, which at 8,000 cubits, or 4,000 yards to 
 the kro ' sa or ko ' s, will be exactly nine miles ; 
 other computations make the yojana but about 
 five miles, or even no more than four miles and 
 a half." 3I We thus see that the diameter of 
 the Buddhist moon does not exceed 360 miles. 
 What would the lunarians say to these few
 
 24 LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 figures ? Especially if they knew what a 
 French author says of them in relation to the 
 smallness of their world. " This would probably 
 not prevent its inhabitants (if there are any) 
 from fancying themselves superior to us, and 
 believing us to be their servants rather than 
 their masters ; for it is generally known that 
 the smaller people are, the more vanity they 
 possess." 32 The modus operandi, in determining 
 the diameter and mass of the moon, is detailed 
 by Dr. Lardner in his Handbook of Astronomy 
 (sections 2640-44), and described with greater 
 brevity by Mrs. Somerville, who says, " The 
 mass of the moon is determined from several 
 sources from her action on the terrestrial 
 equator, which occasions the nutation in the 
 axis of rotation ; from her horizontal parallax ; 
 from an inequality she produces in the sun's 
 longitude ; and from her action on the tides. 
 The apparent diameters of the sun, moon, and 
 planets are determined by measurement ; there- 
 fore their real diameters may be compared with 
 that of the earth ; for the real diameter of a 
 planet is to the real diameter of the earth, or 
 7,899 miles, as the apparent diameter of the 
 planet to the apparent diameter of the earth
 
 THE MOON'S SIZE. 25 
 
 as seen from the planet, that is, to twice the 
 parallax of the planet." 33 In briefest form, we 
 may say that the ratio of the moon's mass to the 
 masses of the earth and the sun is computed 
 by the observed effects of lunar attraction ; while 
 the diameter is ascertained by measurement 
 based upon the lunar parallax.
 
 IV. 
 
 THE MOON'S SHAPE. 
 
 " Meanwhile the moon, 
 
 Full orb'd and breaking through the scatter'd clouds, 
 Shows her broad visage in the crimsoned east. 
 Turned to the sun direct, her spotted disk 
 Where mountains rise, umbrageous dales descend, 
 And caverns deep, as optic tube descries, 
 A smaller earth gives all his blaze again, 
 Void of its flame, and sheds a softer day. 
 Now through the passing cloud she seems to stoop, 
 Now up the pure cerulean rides sublime. 
 Wide the pale deluge floats, and streaming mild 
 O'er the skied mountain to the shadowy vale, 
 While rocks and floods reflect the quivering gleam, 
 The whole air whitens with a boundless tide 
 Of silver radiance, trembling round the world." ** 
 
 ALIGHTING in the lunar world, we find a body, 
 neither round, square, nor exactly oval, but of 
 that lovely figure called an ellipsoid, or oval-like. 
 The earth, we know, is an oblate spheroid, 
 which the dictionaries define as a sphere de- 
 pressed at the poles ; somewhat resembling a
 
 THE MOON'S SHAPa. 
 
 candidate for parliamentary honours, when he 
 finds himself defeated. Columbus imagined 
 that the earth had the shape of a pear. The 
 philosophizing Knickerbocker preferred an 
 orange ; for that " small, brisk-looking old 
 gentleman " begins his description of the 
 world as follows : " According to the best 
 authorities, the world in which we dwell is a 
 huge opaque, reflecting, inanimate mass, float- 
 ing in the vast ethereal ocean of infinite space. 
 It has the form of an orange, being an oblate 
 spheroid, curiously flattened at opposite parts 
 for the insertion of two imaginary poles, which 
 are supposed to penetrate and unite at the 
 centre ; thus forming an axis on which the 
 mighty orange turns with a regular diurnal 
 revolution." 3S The moon also has a con- 
 formity to the golden fruit ; for although orange 
 is probably Persian, we enjoy the etymology 
 which connects it with the Latin for gold. 
 " Small photographs of the full moon look so 
 much like photographs of a peeled orange, 
 that, as Wendell Holmes notes, many persons 
 suppose astronomers have substituted the 
 orange for the moon, so as to save themselves 
 trouble." 3fi This is a fruitful suggestion ; and
 
 28 LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 if lecturers on lunar physics, especially to 
 juvenile audiences, were to pass round oranges 
 as illustrations of the moon's shape, we are 
 confident that their prelections would be more 
 delectable and far less dry. Heraclitus, " the 
 obscure philosopher" of Ephesus, compared 
 the moon to a boat ; others to a circle. The 
 former meant the new moon ; the latter, Luna 
 in full dress. Empedocles of Sicily said that 
 it resembled a basin or platter. This reminds 
 us that the Indians of North America call the 
 earth the big plate where all the spirits eat, and 
 they think that it enlarges with the increase 
 of vegetation and inhabitants. Some of the 
 Winnebagoes believe that the earth is oval on 
 the top, and flat at the bottom. Herodotus 
 ridiculed the idea of the earth's circularity. 
 He says, " Many even now commit the 
 ludicrous and ignorant error of drawing a map 
 of the earth, in which it is represented of a 
 circular form, as if its outline were traced with 
 a compass, and the ocean is made to flow 
 round it." 37 Berosus of Babylon thought the 
 moon a globe with one side luminous, and the 
 other of a sky-blue. To the Stoics of Greece 
 our satellite was round as a sphere : while her
 
 THE MOON'S SHAPE. 29 
 
 circular shape suggests to the Hindus the idea 
 of a ring or pearl ; and the pearl- moon, from 
 its ambrosial humour, has a fine water.
 
 V. 
 
 THE MOON'S SUBSTANCE. 
 
 " The moon's the earth's enamour'd bride ; 
 True to him in her very changes, 
 To other stars she never ranges : 
 
 Though crossed by him, sometimes she dips 
 Her light, in short offended pride, 
 And faints to an eclipse. 
 
 The fairies revel by her sheen ; 
 'Tis only when the moon's above 
 The fire-fly kindles into love, 
 
 And flashes light to show it : 
 The nightingale salutes her queen 
 Of heaven, her heav'nly poet." 38 
 
 VARIOUS opinions, ancient and modern, have 
 been held of the moon's substances. Some 
 regarded it as a rotund rock : a kind of hard 
 head, without trunk or limbs, whose corrugated 
 brow bore witness to its old age and rough 
 experience. Others have had no doubt that it 
 was of much lighter material than the earth ; 
 that is, of less mean density. Some among the
 
 THE MOON'S SUBSTANCE. 31 
 
 ancients thought that the moon was a celestial 
 kind of earth, where our mud earth was pitied. 
 Others that it was a sort of pumice-stone. 
 Socrates was credited with saying, "that the 
 sun is a stone, and the moon earth." 39 Anaxi- 
 mander taught that the moon was full of fire; 
 Anaximenes, that it was the same as the 
 earth ; Empedocles, that it was congealed mist 
 hardened by fire ; Xenophanes, the father of 
 the Eleatics, that it was a thick, compact, 
 felted cloud ; Parmenides, that it was a mix- 
 ture of fire and air ; Heraclitus, that it was of 
 earth overspread with mists ; Anaxagoras and 
 Democritus, that it was a " solid and firm body, 
 all fiery, containing champaign grounds, with 
 mountains and valleys ; " Plato, that it was a 
 fiery substance ; Pythagoras, that its body 
 was of the nature of fire ; the Stoics, that it 
 was a mixture of fire and air. The Buddhists 
 say that " within it is composed of crystal, and 
 its surface is of silver ; so that both its surface 
 and inner material are extremely cold." 4 
 Hegel held it to be a "material crystallization." 
 Yet with this mass of wisdom before them, 
 certain scientific men affirm that the moon's 
 physical history is a physical mystery, and that
 
 32 LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 its substance is substantially unknown. With 
 due deference to scientific men we profess to 
 be better informed. We are in possession of 
 cumulative evidence that the moon is made of 
 green cheese. We proudly refer to such re- 
 doubtable authorities as Samuel Butler and 
 Fra^ois Rabelais, with many more. The 
 rising generation seldom make mistakes, and 
 one of their nursery rhymes is of three chil- 
 dren who went hunting by night : 
 
 " One said it was the moon, 
 
 Another said, Nay ; 
 A third said it was a cheese, 
 And half o't cut away." 
 
 The heroic Hudibras acknowledged the 
 prevalency of this opinion, for 
 
 " He made an instrument to know 
 If the moon shine at full or no ; 
 That would, as soon as e'er she shone, straight, 
 Whether 'twere day or night demonstrate ; 
 Tell what her di'meter to an inch is, 
 And prove that she's not made of green cheese." 4I 
 
 Rabelais records that Gargantua " thought 
 the moon was made of green cheese." 42 Fur- 
 ther, in that "progeny of learning," as Mrs. 
 Malaprop would have called it, the library of 
 the British Museum, we discovered the follow-
 
 THE MOON'S SUBSTANCE. 33 
 
 ing passage, three centuries old. Its spelling 
 is beautiful to behold ; its poetry most ex- 
 quisite. 
 
 " Such is the fashyon of the worlde now a dayes, 
 That the symple innosaintes ar deluded 
 And an hundred thousand divers wayes 
 By suttle and craftye meanes shamefullie abused. 
 And by strength, force, and violence oft times compelled 
 To believe and saye the moune is made of a grene chese 
 Or ells have great harm, and parcace their life lese." 43 
 
 How those who deride modern thought will 
 glory in such ancient wisdom as this ! Our 
 astute ancestors indulged in no senseless jar- 
 gon about nebular hypotheses, laws of gravi- 
 tation, undulatory theories, centrifugal and 
 centripetal forces ; they knew that the earth 
 was stationary and flat, that all of the heavenly 
 armies marched over their heads, every twenty- 
 four hours, for men to review them ; and that 
 the moon was a single Gloucester cheese, and 
 its inhabitants mites. This, probably, is the 
 origin of that wicked witticism, "When is a 
 cheese like the moon ? " Answer, " When it is 
 high and mity." The French, in allusion to the 
 cheesemonger's moon, say, " II veut prendre 
 la lune avec les dents" (He wants to take the 
 moon between his teeth). It must have been 
 
 D
 
 34 LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 with kindred feeling that the Wiltshire moon- 
 raker, who saw the moon reflected in a pond, 
 and took it to be a cheese, tried to fish it out 
 with a rake. This may appear an idle notion, 
 but beyond question it is widespread and of 
 considerable antiquity. In the Highland fable 
 of the wolf and the fox, the wolf lost his tail 
 through supposing the moon was a cheese. 
 The fox said, " I smell a very nice cheese, and 
 (pointing to the moonshine on the ice) there it 
 is, too." " And how will you get it ? " said the 
 wolf. "Well, stop you here till I see if the 
 farmer is asleep ; and if you keep your tail on 
 it, nobody will see you or know that it is there. 
 Keep it steady. I may be some time coming 
 back ! " So the wolf lay down, and laid his 
 tail on the moonshine in the ice, and kept it 
 for an hour till it was fast. The fox then gave 
 the alarm, the farmer and his wife came with 
 sticks to kill the wolf, who, not wishing to be 
 killed, ran off, leaving his long tail behind him ; 
 and that is why the wolfs tail is stumpy to this 
 day. 44 This fox and wolf story recalls the old 
 Norse tale of " Why the bear is stumpy-tailed." 
 The fox told the bear to cut a hole in the ice, 
 and hold his tail therein for a fishing line.
 
 THE MOON'S SUBSTANCE. 35 
 
 When it began to smart he would know that 
 the fish were biting. He did so, and the fox's 
 caudal lecture cost the bear the extreme loss 
 which all bears inherit. Strange to say, the 
 above Highland legend is found, in another 
 form, in the Talmud. " Rabbi Meir was a 
 great allegorist ; it is said that he knew three 
 hundred allegories relating to the fox alone. 
 Of these but three fragments remain to us." 
 One is as follows : "A fox said to a bear, 
 ' Come with me, my good friend ; let us not 
 quarrel : I will lead thee to another place 
 where we shall surely find food.' The fox 
 then led the bear to a fountain, where two 
 buckets were fastened together by a rope, like 
 balances. It was night, and the fox pointed to 
 the moon reflected in the water, saying, ' Here 
 is a fine cheese ; let us descend and partake of 
 it with an appetite.' The fox entered his pail 
 first, but being too light to balance the weight 
 of the bear, he took with him a stone. As 
 soon as the bear had gotten into the other pail, 
 however, the fox threw this stone away, and 
 consequently he rose, while the bear descended 
 to the bottom." 45 That the moon is a cream 
 cheese may be merely a reductio ad absurdum
 
 36 LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 to prove the futility of former attempts to 
 elucidate the enigmas of nature, one of which 
 was the constitution of distant worlds. The 
 material of the moon is a mystery not even 
 now altogether revealed. Most likely the 
 elements are much the same as those of the 
 earth. The main difference is doubtless one 
 of proportion in the composition rather than of 
 essence in the ingredients. For if we accept 
 the hypothesis of Laplace, that satellites are 
 masses thrown off from their primaries, as 
 those primaries had been previously thrown off 
 from the sun, we must infer that the constituent 
 materials of one globe are the same as those of 
 all the others having a common genesis. The 
 chemistry of creation is exceedingly simple in 
 its elementary substances, but infinitely com- 
 plex in its countless combinations. Analysis 
 has given us an insight into the synthesis of 
 our own globe, and " how infinitely is the 
 knowledge increased in interest, when we con- 
 sider the probability of such being the materials 
 of the whole of the bodies of space, and the 
 laws under which these everywhere combine, 
 subject only to local and accidental varia- 
 tions ! " 4<5 The chemistry of the future will
 
 THE MOON'S SUBSTANCE. 37 
 
 do more than demonstrate that creation is a 
 universe " turned into one," or " combined in 
 one whole " : it will show how totals grow from 
 units, whose original UNUS is GOD.
 
 VI. 
 
 THE MOON'S FORMATION. 
 
 " Now came still evening on, and twilight grey 
 Had in her sober livery all things clad ; 
 Silence accompanied ; for beast and bird, 
 They to their grassy couch, these to their nests, 
 Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale ; 
 She all night long her amorous descant sung ; 
 Silence was pleased : now glovv'd the firmament 
 With living sapphires : Hesperus, that led 
 The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon, 
 Rising in clouded majesty, at length 
 Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light, 
 And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw." 47 
 
 " IN beginning, God created the heavens and 
 the earth." This is true, not because it is 
 found in the Bible ; but it is found in the Bible, 
 because it is true. And it will be admitted 
 as axiomatic by all, save a few unreasonable 
 minds who admit nothing except their own 
 right to deny everything. This cosmogony in 
 a clause contains the five points of a posteriori 
 reasoning upon the genesis of the universe.
 
 THE MOOJVS FORMATION: 39 
 
 Firstly, the reasoner, commencing with himself, 
 the ego, as the metaphysicians have it, sees 
 that he is a part of a whole inhabited earth. 
 Secondly, he observes that the earth is to him 
 the centre of limitless heavens ; the grand 
 totality in which his own world is but a unit. 
 Thirdly, he discovers in all worlds what Sir 
 John Herschel called the "appearance of manu- 
 factured articles " : they were created or made. 
 Fourthly, he concludes that what was made 
 must have had a maker, whom he calls God, 
 or in Indo-Germanic language, the Brilliant 
 Being, who spreads the light. Finally, he 
 rests his weary wing on the boundary of 
 natiire, which means what is born ; and in the 
 moment of that birth, his terminus a quo, he 
 finds the beginning of all things which exist. 
 That such beginning took place but six thou- 
 sand years since, he cannot believe with the 
 sunlight of modern science shining upon his 
 studies. Still, he does not ridicule those who 
 in ancient times held otherwise ; he ridicules 
 only those who at the present day claim for 
 the ancients a scientific accuracy which they 
 never possessed, and which they never claimed 
 for themselves. He is, however, in entire har-
 
 4Q LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 mony with the writer who affirms that " God 
 made two great lights ; the greater light to rule 
 the day, and the lesser light to rule the night." 
 How the sun and moon were made, that writer 
 neither knew nor pretended to know ; and the 
 how is a matter of much conjecture to the 
 present moment. Let us unanimously and 
 reverently acknowledge the Divine Authorship 
 of nature, postulating a First Cause as a logical 
 necessity ; and then proceed to questions of 
 process and development, or evolution, without 
 fear or reproach. 
 
 Now, to turn to the formation of the moon. 
 Many astronomers, Nasmyth and Carpenter 
 among the number, maintain its origin to have 
 resulted through the diffusion of primordial 
 matter, whose particles, under the combined 
 action of impulse and gravitation, generated 
 cosmical heat. For motion, as Locke pointed 
 out, manifests itself as heat ; and heat, as Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall shows, is a mode of motion. 
 Particles of matter colliding by mutual gravi- 
 tation would generate sufficient heat to reduce 
 the whole to a molten mass. But with the ag- 
 gregation of matter, the generation of dynamical 
 heat would be diminished ; the material being
 
 THE MOON'S FORMATION. 41 
 
 meanwhile condensed into a spherical planetary 
 body. Cooling would occur from radiation, first 
 upon the surface ; and consequently " with the 
 solidification of this external crust began the 
 year one of selenological history." 48 Through 
 cooling, the superficial matter of the moon 
 might contract into wrinkles like a shrivelled 
 apple or a rugous hand ; and thus the de- 
 pressions may have occurred. Mr. Proctor 
 seems to think that there was a time when the 
 earth's vapour globe, extending to and envelop- 
 ing the moon, shrunk in its dimensions, leaving 
 the moon, a vapour nucleus, out in the cold ; 
 and that therefore, being smaller, it became 
 solid sooner than the earth. He does well to 
 add, "It is manifest that we have in the moon 
 a subject of research which has been by no 
 means exhausted." 4q The orientals, however, 
 think otherwise. The Hindus make an obla- 
 tion of clarified butter, with the following 
 prayer : " Gods ! produce that [moon] which 
 has no foe, which is the son of the solar orb, 
 and became the offspring of space, for the 
 benefit of this world ; produce it for the ad- 
 vancement of knowledge, for protection from 
 danger, for vast supremacy, for empire, and for
 
 42 LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 the sake of Indra's organs of sense. May 
 this oblation to the lunar planet be efficacious." 50 
 The Eastern mind lingers in that poetic state 
 of adolescence which sees scientific objects in 
 a " dim religious light " ; while the Western 
 mind is chafed by those limitations which 
 retard investigation. But " with time and 
 patience, the mulberry-leaf becomes satin." 
 
 " We have but faith ; we cannot know : 
 For knowledge is of things we see ; 
 And yet we trust it comes from Thee, 
 A beam in darkness : let it grow." 
 
 The Mexican myth of the moon's formation 
 is that Tezcociztecal, following the example of 
 the hero who had become the sun, threw him- 
 self into a great fire ; " but the flames being 
 somewhat less fierce, he turned out less bright, 
 and was transformed into the moon." 5I The 
 Esquimaux tradition is radically the same ; 
 and we may read it as science in a fable, or as 
 a fable in science. " There was a girl at a 
 party, and some one told his love for her by 
 shaking her shoulders, after the manner of the 
 country. She could not see who itwas in the 
 dark hut, so she smeared her hands with soot, 
 and when he came back she blackened his
 
 THE MOON'S FORMATION. 43 
 
 cheek with her hand. When a light was 
 brought she saw that it was her brother, and 
 fled. He ran after her, followed her, and as 
 she came to the end of the earth, he sprang 
 out into the sky. Then she became the sun, 
 and he the moon ; and this is why the moon is 
 always chasing the sun through the heavens, 
 and why the moon is sometimes dark as he 
 turns his blackened cheek towards the earth." 52 
 This masculine moon is of high antiquity.
 
 VII. 
 
 THE MOON'S CONDITION. 
 
 " Queen and huntress, chaste and fair, 
 
 Now the sun is laid to sleep, 
 Seated in thy silver chair, 
 
 State in wonted manner keep. 
 Hesperus entreats thy light, 
 Goddess excellently bright ! 
 
 Earth, let not thy envious shade 
 
 Dare itself to interpose ; 
 Cynthia's shining orb was made 
 
 Heaven to clear, when day did close. 
 Bless us then with wished sight, 
 Goddess excellently bright ! 
 
 Lay thy bow of pearl apart, 
 
 And thy crystal-shining quiver : 
 Give unto the flying hart 
 
 Space to breathe how short soever ; 
 Thou that mak'st a day of night, 
 Goddess excellently bright ! " 53 
 
 O'KEW, the physiophilosopher of Zurich, who 
 taught that the moons have come, " not 
 mechanically, but dynamically, by polarization 
 according to eternal laws, according to the laws
 
 THE MOON'S CONDITION. 45 
 
 of light, " tells us in laconic language, " the 
 moon is in itself dead." 54 We have met with 
 other decisions just as peremptory as this, and 
 have felt tempted to write cadit quczstio, and to 
 timidly confess that the case allowed of no 
 further inquiry. Especially after one of our 
 own favourite poets had asked so pitifully of 
 the moon : 
 
 " Art thou pale for weariness 
 
 Of climbing heaven, and gazing on the earth, 
 Wandering companionless 
 
 Among the stars that have a different birth, 
 And ever changing, like a joyless eye 
 That finds no object worth its constancy? " ss 
 
 Surely the moonbeams must be none other 
 than the sheeted ghosts which haunt the 
 sepulchres where lie the petrified remains of 
 primeval lunarian life. But upon recovery of 
 ourselves, we object to the argument being fore- 
 closed in this fashion. It is not a century ago 
 since Sir William Herschel wrote (April, 1787), 
 " I perceive three volcanoes in different places 
 of the dark part of the new moon. Two of 
 them are already nearly extinct, or otherwise in 
 a state of going to break out ; the third shows 
 an eruption of fire or luminous matter." No 
 doubt the great astronomer was mistaken, and
 
 46 LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 that what he saw was only " earth-light re- 
 flected from those parts of the moon's surface 
 which have the least reflective capacity." But 
 if there be no active volcanoes in the moon 
 just now belching out their fires, we know that 
 the lunar craters are so numerous that Galileo 
 compared them to the eyes in a peacock's tail 
 for multitude, and so immense that, compared 
 with them, our Vesuvius and Etna are very 
 small. Who can tell that some night we may 
 not see one of these tremendous furnaces burst- 
 ing into flame, and convincing amazed beholders 
 that there is life in the old moon yet ? Mr. 
 Norman Lockyer, in his lucid Lessons in 
 Astronomy, notes one possible exception to the 
 rule that these volcanoes are extinct ; and the 
 end of our knowledge being the beginning of 
 our ignorance, we wait for further light. A 
 more material question, perhaps, is that of 
 water and atmosphere upon the lunar surface. 
 Kepler, Hevelius, and Ricciolus thought the 
 dark portions were existing seas ; but if the 
 smooth plains on the moon be the dry bottoms 
 of former seas, what has become of the water ? 
 Flammarion says, " Since the distant period of 
 its formation in a fluid state, it has lost all its
 
 THE MOON'S CONDITION. 47 
 
 liquids and vapours, and now a linnet would 
 die of thirst in the midst of the seas of the 
 moon. These seas do not contain a drop of 
 water. These, it will be said, are singular 
 seas." s6 Mr. Mallet, our leading seizmologist, 
 lays down the rule that "without water there 
 can be no eruption." If this be so, and if 
 eruptions have taken place and are possible 
 still, we press the question, What has become 
 of the water ? William Whiston said that a 
 comet swept it away ; as another comet pro- 
 duced a deluge on the earth, and replenished 
 our seas. This author's account of Noah's 
 flood is worth reproduction : " When the earth 
 passed clear through the atmosphere and tail of 
 the comet, in which it would remain for about 
 two hours (as from the velocity of the earth, and 
 the crassitude of the said tail on calculation 
 does appear), it must acquire a large cylindrical 
 column of vapours." S7 And this sweep of the 
 comet's tail was the source of the forty days of 
 rain ! Well, Whiston was a very learned man ; 
 but the " crassitude" of our minds prevents us 
 from entertaining his theories with regard to 
 the appearance of much water on the earth, 
 and the dw-appearance of all water on the
 
 48 LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 moon. Another authority says that the lunar 
 fluids are all frozen solid. But if during the 
 long lunar day the temperature of the moon's 
 face under the burning sun rises to more than 
 500 Fahrenheit, much of the ice ought to melt, 
 and be visible from the earth in masses of mist. 
 A third theory is that the moon has opened its 
 mouth and swallowed all the water into its 
 capacious interior. This hypothesis is favoured 
 by Guillemin, who thinks that the cavernous 
 structure of the moon's interior would provide 
 a receptacle for its ocean, from the depths of 
 which the sun would be unable to dislodge 
 more than traces of its vapour. s8 And a fourth 
 opinion is that it is withdrawn to the other side 
 of the moon. Even the illustrious Hansen 
 held that the hidden half might possess water. 
 Such an explanation is admissible and admir- 
 able only on the principle of Tacitus, Omne 
 ignotum pro magnified est ; which may be freely 
 rendered, What we do not know supplies a 
 magnificent substitute for what we would like 
 to know. But the moon's centre of gravity is 
 more than thirty miles farther away from the 
 middle point of that diameter which is directed 
 towards the earth. Therefore the moon is
 
 THE MOON'S CONDITION. 49 
 
 heavier on one side than she is on the other, 
 like a loaded die ; and it is thought that the 
 ocean must flow over to the heavier side. 
 Certainly the farther side of the moon could 
 accommodate the water if it be, in Sir John 
 Herschel's words, "like a great lake basin, 
 nearly forty miles deep." But now we are told 
 that Gussew of Wilna has come to the 
 conclusion that the moon is ellipsoidal, or egg- 
 shaped, the egg being nearly round, and its 
 smaller end and major axis being directed 
 towards the earth. The probability, therefore, 
 is that the other lunar hemisphere is much the 
 same as the side which we see, with as much 
 water and no more. To the existence of a 
 lunar atmosphere, appearances and opinions 
 founded upon them are unfavourable. Though 
 if there be eruptions, we might not only infer 
 the presence of water, but also expect that 
 carbonic acid gas would form an envelope, albeit 
 of extreme rarity. Both water and atmosphere 
 must have been on the moon at one period, if 
 our satellite has passed to its present deforma- 
 tion through ages of life and beauty such as, 
 happily for us, now perennially renew the face 
 of the earth. As Mr. Proctor says : " Now 
 
 E
 
 50 LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 that astronomers have almost by unanimous 
 consent accepted the doctrine of the develop- 
 ment of our system which involves the belief 
 that the whole mass of each member of the 
 system was formerly gaseous with intensity of 
 heat, they can no longer doubt that the moon 
 once had seas, and an atmosphere of consider- 
 able density." 59 The present condition of the 
 moon Professor Newcomb makes known with 
 one dip of his pen. " The atmosphere with 
 which it has been covered, and the inhabitants 
 with which it has been peopled, are no better 
 than the products of a poetic imagination." **
 
 VIII. 
 THE MOON'S SURFACE. 
 
 " O Moon ! the oldest shades 'mong oldest trees 
 Feel palpitations when thou lookest in : 
 O Moon ! old boughs lisp forth a holier din 
 The while they feel thine airy fellowship. 
 Thou dost bless everywhere, with silver lip 
 Kissing dead things to life. The sleeping kine, 
 Couch'd in thy brightness, dream of fields Divine : 
 Innumerable mountains rise, and rise, 
 Ambitious for the hallowing of thine eyes ; 
 And yet thy benediction passeth not 
 One obscure hiding-place, one little spot 
 Where pleasure may be sent : the nested wren 
 Has thy fair face within its tranquil ken, 
 And from beneath a sheltering ivy leaf 
 Takes glimpses of thee ; thou art a relief 
 To the poor, patient oyster, where it sleeps 
 Within its pearly house ; the mighty deeps, 
 The monstrous sea is thine the myriad sea ! 
 O Moon ! far spooming Ocean bows to thee, 
 And Tellus feels her forehead's cumbrous load." 61 
 
 THE moon presents to all observers several 
 aspects on several occasions. At one time she
 
 52 LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 is a luminous arc, when the poets sing of her 
 as the queen of the silver bow. Each succeed- 
 ing night she is enlarged till a semicircle is 
 outlined, and filled in with soft white lustre. 
 Soon the terminator, as it is called, or the 
 boundary between the shining and shaded por- 
 tions, becomes more convex with brightness, 
 until the gibbous moon becomes full, rounded 
 out with radiance one of the loveliest objects 
 ever seen in the dark dome of night. These 
 changes or phases demonstrate that the moon 
 is a dark body, and is illumined only by beams 
 borrowed from the sun. This was believed by 
 Thales of Miletus, one of the seven sages of 
 Greece ; by his scholar and successor, Anaxi- 
 mander ; by Pythagoras, Parmenides, Empe- 
 docles, and others among the ancients : while 
 Antiphon and others taught that her light was 
 her own. Some thought that her phases were 
 occasioned by the shadowing of the earth, which 
 came between. " Berosus, the Chaldean, gave 
 a very original explanation of the phases and 
 eclipses of the moon. He said it had one side 
 bright, and the other side just the colour of 
 the sky, and in turning it represented the 
 different colours to us. Some savage races say
 
 THE MOON'S SURFACE. 53 
 
 that the moon when decreasing breaks up into 
 stars, and is renewed each month by a creative 
 act. The Indians used to say that it was full 
 of nectar, which the gods ate up when it waned, 
 and which grew again when it waxed." 62 An 
 instructive Talmudic legend is to the effect that 
 the moon at first shone with her own light ; but 
 on her becoming jealous of the sun's superior 
 splendour, her radiance flew away and became 
 a host of stars, leaving the dissatisfied orb to 
 shine only with beams lent by the light of day. 
 It was to portray her phases that "the ancients 
 represented the moon, as they did the sun, sit- 
 ting in a chariot, and drawn by horses. The 
 old opinion was, that one of these horses was 
 black, and the other white a motley equipage ; 
 but we find Homer, Hesiod, and, among the 
 Latins, Ovid, mentioning it. They intended 
 to convey by it some idea of the moon's being 
 sometimes dark and sometimes enlightened ; 
 but they were not so well agreed about the 
 cattle as her chariot. Claudian, to express the 
 rapidity of her motion, makes them stags ; and 
 we find some very old writers among the 
 Greeks who fix upon oxen for her." 63 Some 
 among the ancients thought the moon a large,.
 
 54 LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 well-polished mirror, reflecting our own oceans 
 and mountains : the dark spots representing 
 our seas, and the bright patches our continents. 
 Humboldt found this fancy preserved to his 
 day among the people of Asia Minor. He 
 writes : "I was once very much astonished to 
 hear a very accomplished Persian of Ispahan, 
 who had certainly never read a Greek book, 
 to whom I was showing in Paris the spots on 
 the moon's face through a large telescope, pro- 
 pose the same hypothesis of reflection as that 
 of Agesinax, referred to in the text, as prevail- 
 ing in his own country. ' It is ourselves that 
 we see in the moon,' said the Persian, ' that is 
 the map of our earth.' One of the interlocutors 
 in Plutarch's conversation on the moon would 
 not have expressed himself otherwise." 64 But, 
 thanks to the telescope and micrometer, which 
 have been at work, delineations of the moon 
 are now more accurate than terrestrial maps ; 
 every bay and promontory are seen in distinct 
 outline ; and photography has transferred the 
 likeness of the moon to metallic plates with 
 such fidelity, that to err in this matter is human 
 no longer. Still, the dissipation of such illusions 
 will never diminish our admiration of the moon's
 
 THE MOON'S SURFACE. 55 
 
 fair, if not fairy, face. The dream may vanish, 
 but the vision will remain ; for 
 
 " A thing of beauty is a joy for ever : 
 Its loveliness increases ; it will never 
 Pass into nothingness." KEATS'S Endymion. 
 
 What a magnificent sight our world must 
 present to lunar astronomers, with an earth- 
 light about fourteen times the intensity of 
 moonlight! If we admire the new moon, how 
 they must admire the new earth ; for the earth, 
 of course, has similar phases ! How they must 
 adore the crescent earth and the half-earth, the 
 gibbous earth and the full earth ! Our self- 
 esteem forbids us to think that all this terrestrial 
 glory is thrown away on a moon which is un- 
 inhabited and dead. Be this as it may, " The 
 earth is at the full at the time of the new moon, 
 and at the new at the time of the full moon." 6s 
 This explains why at new moon the whole of 
 the lunar disc is dimly visible at sunset and 
 dawn ; for the earth reflects the sun's light 
 upon the moon, just as the moon reflects it 
 upon the earth. " The light which passes from 
 the illuminated hemisphere of the earth to the 
 obscure surface of the moon becomes reflected^.
 
 56 LVNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 returns in a fainter form to the earth, and makes 
 visible the half of the moon, which is not only 
 edged with a silvery crescent, but is of a pale 
 and ashy tint throughout, which causes it to 
 stand out against the azure blue of the sky." 6 
 This phenomenon is called earth-shine.
 
 IX. 
 
 ;THE MOON'S MOTIONS. 
 
 " With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies ! 
 How silently, and with how wan a face ! 
 What ! may it be, that ev'n in heavenly place 
 That busy archer his sharp arrows tries ? 
 Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes 
 Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case ; 
 I read it in thy looks ; thy languished grace, 
 To me, that feel the like, thy state descries. 
 Then, e'en of fellowship, O Moon, tell me, 
 Is constant love deemed there but want of wit ? 
 Are beauties there as proud as here they be? 
 Do they above love to be loved, and yet 
 Those lovers scorn, whom that love doth possess ? 
 Do they call virtue there ungratefulness ? " 
 
 THAT the heavenly bodies move is never 
 disputed by us, but it was by our fathers in 
 the brave days of old. Nearly all of the most 
 ancient philosophers believed the sky to be a 
 solid dome or firmament, and could not admit 
 the idea of a star standing alone in space, or 
 having a free motion of its own. So still, the
 
 58 LUXAR SCIENCE. 
 
 North American Indians, the Creeks to wit, 
 believe the earth to be a plane and quiescent : 
 that the sun, moon, and stars wheel round the 
 earth ; but that some of the celestial orbs are 
 fixed or stuck on to the sky. 68 Pharnaces is 
 reported to have feared that the moon would 
 fall, and pitied those who were " plumbe under 
 the course of the moone, lest so weightie a mass 
 should tumble down upon their heads." Plu- 
 tarch, who cites this odd notion, thought that 
 her motion would keep her up. Pythagoras 
 seems to have comprehended the solar system, 
 so far as to have recognised the diurnal rotation 
 of the earth, and the revolutions of the other 
 planets. But the ancient Hebrews regard the 
 heavens " as a canopy or a curtain, spread over 
 the earth in such infinite distance, that men 
 appear from thence ' like grasshoppers ' ; it is 
 an immeasurable tent for the habitation of God. 
 It is strong and massive, like a molten mirror, 
 but not brazen, like the Homeric heaven ; it 
 resembles the mirror chiefly with regard to its 
 bright splendour, for it is like pellucid sap- 
 phire, or like crystal. This vault has a gate, 
 through which the angels descend to the earth, 
 or through which the prophets beheld their
 
 THE MOON'S MOTIONS. 59 
 
 heavenly visions. It has, further, windows or 
 doors, through which the rain and dew, snow 
 and hail, treasured up in the clouds above, 
 and held together in those spheres by the will 
 of God, pour down upon the earth at His 
 command ; by which the tempests also, there 
 confined in apartments, are let loose ; and 
 through which the lightning flashes, either as a 
 symbol of Divine omnipotence, or as a mes- 
 senger of Divine wrath. In the heaven or 
 firmament, the sun, the moon, and the stars are 
 fixed, to send their light to the earth and its 
 inhabitants, and to regulate the seasons ; hence 
 the heaven is described as exercising power or 
 government over the earth, since the pheno- 
 mena of the air also are controlled by its in- 
 fluence. Beyond this illumined canopy reigns 
 darkness, which the Divine wisdom has, with a 
 nice distinction, separated from the regions of 
 light. But above it is a sphere of liquid stores ; 
 here God dwells, for here He has framed His 
 chambers ; here is His sanctuary, His palace, 
 the place of His glory ; from hence He 
 traverses the world on the wings of the wind 
 and in the chariot of the clouds ; for the heaven 
 is His throne and the earth is His footstool.
 
 60 LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 That whole vault is supported by mighty 
 pillars or foundations, resting on the earth ; 
 and thus heaven and earth are marked as one 
 majestic edifice, forming the universe." Dr. 
 Kalisch, the Hebrew commentator, who thus 
 summarises the cosmography of his ancestors, 
 justly adds, " Many of these notions, especially 
 those concerning the abode of the Deity, are 
 rather poetical metaphors than the real con- 
 ceptions of the Hebrews ; and although some 
 of them might be the remnants of mythic 
 times, others are certainly figurative expres- 
 sions." 69 So much for former times. Now we 
 not only know that the moon moves, but we 
 are able to measure her motions to a second of 
 arc or a moment of time. Her rotation on her 
 axis, for example, and her revolution round 
 the earth, are both performed in 27 days, 7 
 hours, 43 minutes, and \\\ seconds. This is 
 why we see only one side of our satellite. Any 
 person can demonstrate to himself this duplex 
 movement in the following manner : Let a 
 lamp be placed in the centre of a room, to 
 represent the earth. Then let the observer 
 walk half-way round the room with his face 
 toward the lamp. He will find that he has
 
 THE MOON'S MOTIONS. 61 
 
 himself turned half-way round ; and that if he 
 commenced with his face towards the east, it is 
 now directed towards the west. When he 
 regains his starting-point, he will have rotated 
 upon his own centre while he described a cir- 
 cumference about the lamp. The moon's revo- 
 lution round the earth is called her periodic 
 time, or, in more sonorous phrase, her periodi- 
 city. It is also styled her sidereal movement, 
 or her revolution in relation to the stars. Her 
 lunar period, or lunation, is determined by the 
 recurrence of her phases from new moon to 
 new moon again, and is accomplished in 29 
 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, and 3 seconds. 
 This is her synodic period, or her revolution in 
 relation to the sun. The ancient Hebrews 
 were not far wrong in this reckoning : " The 
 renewal of the moon comes round in not less 
 than twenty -nine days and a half and forty 
 minutes." 7 Eudoxus of Cnidus, a scholar of 
 Plato, who flourished about 366 B.C., travelled 
 while young into Egypt, and there, in con- 
 versation with the hierophants, learned the first 
 lessons of regular astronomy. He made the 
 synodic revolution of the moon to be 29 days, 
 1 2 hours, 43 minutes, 38 seconds, a difference of
 
 62 LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 but 25 seconds from the calculation of to-day. 
 The proper motion of the moon in its orbit 
 about the earth is from east to west. 
 
 The moon's librarians, or balancing motions, 
 by which she appears to rock slightly to and 
 fro, are threefold. The diurnal libration is 
 explained by the fact that, when she rises, we 
 view her as if from an eminence, and so see a 
 little over her; when she has mounted to the 
 meridian, we look her full in the face ; and, at 
 her setting, we again catch a side-face view. 
 Her libration in latitude is thus occasioned. 
 Her axis not being perpendicular to the plane 
 of her orbit, but inclined i 32', her poles appear 
 alternately for a little while to our gaze. The 
 libration in longitude means that, as her orbital 
 motion is not so uniform as her rotation, she 
 sometimes exhibits more of her eastern and 
 sometimes more of her western edge. There 
 is a fourth perturbation, called the spheroidal, 
 which is produced in the moon's progress by 
 the protuberant matter of the earth's equator. 
 This was discovered by Lagrange. But we 
 must leave these librations. 
 
 One knotty question remains, which Mr. 
 Norman Lockyer has untied. It concerns the
 
 THE MOON'S MOTIONS. 63 
 
 moon's nodes. " The plane in which the moon 
 performs her journey round the earth is inclined 
 5 to the plane of the ecliptic, or the plane in 
 which the earth performs her journey round 
 the sun. The two points in which the moon's 
 orbit, or the orbit of any other celestial body, 
 intersects the earth's orbit, are called the nodes. 
 The line joining these two points is called the 
 line of nodes. The node at which the body 
 passes to the north of the ecliptic is called the 
 ascending node, and the other the descending 
 node." 7I In passing, we may note here a point 
 of analogy between our astronomy and that 
 of the Brahmins. "In the language of their 
 rules we may trace some marks of a fabulous 
 and ignorant age, from which indeed even the 
 astronomy of Europe is not altogether free. 
 The place of the moon's ascending node is with 
 them the place of the dragon, or the serpent ; 
 the moon's distance from the node is literally 
 translated by M. Legentil la lune offensfe du 
 dragon. Whether it be that we have borrowed 
 these absurdities from India, along with 
 astrology, or that the popular theory of eclipses 
 has, at first, been everywhere the same, the 
 moon's node is also known with us by the
 
 64 LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 name of the cauda draconis " 72 (the dragon's 
 tail). 
 
 An important use of the heavenly bodies was 
 made ages before their motions were either 
 measured or marked. They served men as 
 chronometers, "for signs and for seasons, and 
 for days and years." Time is defined by Dr. 
 Johnson as " the measure of duration," and he 
 illustrates his definition with a quotation from 
 Locke's Human Understanding. But we think 
 that a better definition of time is, " the measure 
 of motion." Locke argues against this ; but 
 Sir William Hamilton, Dr. Thomas Brown, 
 Kant, and others, maintain that time involves 
 succession, which is a series of divisible mo- 
 tions. The earth moves, the sun, moon, and 
 stars move, nothing stands still : we divide this 
 progress into parts called years, months, days ; 
 and the sum total we denominate time. We 
 now employ mechanical contrivances, of wonder- 
 ful workmanship, to subdivide our days into 
 hours and minutes and seconds. But the an- 
 cients cared little for minute fragments ; their 
 time-piece by day was the shine and shadow 
 of the sun, and by night the progress and 
 phases of the moon. The etymology of the
 
 THE MOON'S MOTIONS. 65 
 
 word is full of meaning. Moon and month are 
 twins, whose parentage was Sanskrit. Profes- 
 sor Max Miiller says, " The moon also was 
 called mas, the measurer, which is its actual 
 name in Sanskrit, closely connected with Greek 
 /*e/9, Latin mensis, English moon" 73 In Egyp- 
 tian also Techu is the name of the moon -god, 
 and is called " the measurer of this earth, the 
 distributor of time." 74 The Persian mdh, for 
 moon, has the same idea at its root. The 
 German mond and monat signify moon and 
 month. Although it is doubtful whether the 
 early Hebrews did anything in lunar computa- 
 tion, it is certain that the word chodesh (itfirr), 
 which means a month, is derived from chddask 
 O^T7) t renew, and so expresses a month be- 
 ginning with the new moon. The Hebrews 
 designated their months in numerical order, the 
 first, second, third, and so on. Geminus of 
 Rhodes says that " the system pursued by the 
 ancient Greeks was to determine their months 
 by the moon, and their years by the sun." The 
 Athenians began their year upon the first new 
 moon after the summer solstice. This year 
 they divided into twelve months, containing 
 alternately 30 and 29 days. Each month was 
 
 F
 
 66 LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 divided into three decades of days, the first day 
 being called veo^vta, because it fell on the new 
 moon. 75 Among- the Romans, Romulus is said 
 to have divided the year into ten months ; 
 but Numa, in imitation of the Greeks, increased 
 the number to twelve, according to the course 
 of the moon. But Julius Caesar adjusted the 
 year to the course of the sun, assigning to each 
 month the number of days which it still con- 
 tains. The Romans also divided their months 
 into three parts. The first day was called 
 Calendce, from an old verb meaning to call out, 
 because a pontiff then made proclamation to 
 the people that it was new moon. 76 These 
 calender have given us our word calendar. Dr. 
 Inman tells us that, " amongst the Indians of 
 North America, time was computed by months 
 or moons, and ' beaver moon,' ' buck moon,' 
 1 buffalo moon/ and the like formed their sole 
 calendar. It was the same amongst the early 
 Greeks, who had their ' planting moons,' ' reap- 
 ing moons,' ' wine moons,' and the like. A 
 similar plan was adopted by the French, when 
 they revolutionised almost everything which 
 had previously been honoured by Church and 
 State." 77 Dr. Pickering found Arabised ne-
 
 THE MOON'S MOTIONS. 67 
 
 grues in Zanzibar who availed themselves of 
 the same lunar chronometry. " The Soahili, 
 besides the usual Muslim calendar, have one of 
 their own. Their new year commenced, in 
 1844, on tne 2 9th of August, or, more precisely, 
 at 6 p.m. on the evening of the 28th ; and I 
 remarked further that it immediately followed 
 full moon. Sadik stated that the Soahili year 
 ' consists of twelve moons and ten days ; and 
 that from the weather on these supernumerary 
 days the people prognosticate that of the whole 
 year. The months or moons are numbered, 
 and three only have names, Shaban (understood 
 to indicate the time of planting), Reje'b, and 
 Ramadan,' appellations which are well known 
 in the Muslim calendar. Indeed it was reiter- 
 ated ' that the Soahili year is the same with the 
 Arab, and consists in like manner of three hun- 
 dred and sixty-five days, or of twelve moons 
 and ten days,' a statement which seems to refer 
 to some agricultural calendar used in Southern 
 Arabia." In like manner the Taheitians "mea- 
 sure long period's of time by moons, or luna- 
 tions. They appeared to have no measure- 
 ments for short distances or short periods of 
 time, corresponding to a mile or an hour, but
 
 68 LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 always pointed to the place in the heavens 
 where the sun would be when we should 
 arrive at the proposed station." 78 The North 
 American Indians still use this simple system. 
 Schoolcraft says, " The new year commences 
 with the Creeks immediately after the celebra- 
 tion of the busk, at the ripening of the new 
 corn in August. They divide the year into 
 two seasons only, to wit, winter and summer, 
 and subdivide it by the successive moons, be- 
 ginning the winter with the moon of August, 
 called the big ripening moon. September, little 
 chestnut moon ; October, big chestnut moon ; 
 November, falling leaf moon ; December, big 
 winter moon; January, little winter moon, alias 
 big winter moon's young brother ; February, 
 the windy moon ; March, little spring moon ; 
 April, big spring moon ; May, mulberry moon ; 
 June, blackberry moon ; July, little ripening 
 moon." 79 From the same author we learn 
 that the Comanches, "for short periods, past 
 or future, count by moons, from full to full." 8o 
 The Winnebagoes reckon twelve moons for a 
 year, of which spring is the commencement. 
 " They differ somewhat in the names of their 
 twelve moons. The following, however, is the
 
 THE MOON'S MOTIONS. 69 
 
 common almanack among them : -ist moon 
 Drying the earth ; 2nd, Digging the ground, 
 or planting corn ; 3rd, Hoeing corn ; 4th, Corn 
 tasselling ; 5th, Corn popping, or harvest time ; 
 6th, Elk whistling; yth, Deer running; 8th, 
 Deer's horns dripping ; 9th, Little bear's time ; 
 loth, Big bear's time; nth, Coon running; 
 1 2th, Fish running." " The moon is not con- 
 sidered by them as having influence on men, 
 vegetation, or animals, and no regard is paid 
 to the particular time of the moon's phases in 
 planting- corn and other seed." 8l The Kenis- 
 tenos "divide the year by the succession of 
 moons. The names which they give to the 
 moons are descriptive of the several seasons. 
 They are in their order, beginning with the 
 month of May, called the frog moon ; the moon 
 when birds begin to lay their eggs ; the moon 
 when birds moult, or cast their feathers ; the 
 moon when birds begin to fly ; the moon in 
 which the moose casts its horns ; the ratting 
 moon ; hoar-frost moon, or ice moon ; whirl- 
 wind moon; cold moon; big moon; eagle moon, 
 and goose moon, which is their April." 82 So 
 the poor Indian's mind is not altogether "un- 
 tutored " ; his horometer is in the heavens, and 
 his dial-plate is the moon.
 
 70 LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 But if the valuable mechanical science of 
 horology has rendered us somewhat indepen- 
 dent in civil life of the celestial orbs, it is pleas- 
 ing to find that the moon still affords good aid 
 in the country districts of our own land. " The 
 parish lantern " is a common expression for 
 the lunar lamp in Cornwall, Berkshire, Wor- 
 cestershire, Yorkshire, and the midland coun- 
 ties, and indeed all over England. Sir Walter 
 Scott tells us that the moon was called " Mac 
 Farlane's lantern " in Scotland : for " the clan 
 of Mac Farlane, occupying the fastnesses of 
 the western side of Loch Lomond, were great 
 depredators on the low country ; and as their 
 excursions were made usually by night, the 
 moon was proverbially called their lantern. 
 Their celebrated pibroch of Hoggil nam Bo, 
 which is the name of their gathering tune, inti- 
 mates similar practices, the sense being, 
 
 " We are bound to drive the bullocks, 
 All by hollows, hirsts, and hillocks, 
 
 Through the sleet and through the rain. 
 When the moon is beaming low 
 On frozen lake and hills of snow, 
 Bold and heartily we go ; 
 
 And all for little gain." 83 
 
 Whilst we are writing upon the moon's
 
 THE MOON'S MOTIONS. 71 
 
 motions, we may dispel a delusion which is 
 still current. It is a very prevalent opinion in 
 many parts that the harvest moon invariably 
 occurs at the time of harvest, whenever that 
 may take place. This notion is thus referred 
 to and refuted by an American author : "About 
 the time of the autumnal equinox, the moon, 
 when near her full, rises about sunset a number 
 of nights in succession. This occasions a re- 
 markable number of brilliant moonlight even- 
 ings ; and as this is, in England, the period of 
 harvest, the phenomenon is called the harvest 
 moon. Its return is celebrated, particularly 
 among the peasantry, by festive dances, and 
 kept as a festival, called the harvest home, an 
 occasion often alluded to by the British poets. 
 Thus Henry Kirke White : 
 
 ' Moon of harvest, herald mild 
 
 Of plenty, rustic labour's child, 
 
 Hail, O hail ! I greet thy beam, 
 
 As soft it trembles o'er the stream, 
 
 And gilds the straw-thatched hamlet wide, 
 
 Where innocence and peace reside ; 
 Tis thou that glad'st with joy the rustic throng, 
 Promptest the tripping dance, th' exhilarating song.' 
 
 " To understand the reason of the harvest 
 moon, we will, as before, consider the moon's
 
 72 LUNAR SCIENCE 
 
 orbit as coinciding with the ecliptic, because we 
 may then take the ecliptic, as it is drawn on 
 the artificial globe, to represent that orbit. We 
 will also bear in mind that, since the ecliptic 
 cuts the meridian obliquely, while all the circles 
 of diurnal revolution cut it perpendicularly, 
 different portions of the ecliptic will cut the 
 horizon at different angles. Thus, when the 
 equinoxes are in the horizon, the ecliptic makes 
 a very small angle with the horizon ; whereas, 
 when the solstitial points are in the horizon, 
 the same angle is far greater. In the former 
 case, a body moving eastward in the ecliptic, 
 and being at the eastern horizon at sunset, 
 would descend but a little way below the 
 horizon in moving over many degrees of the 
 ecliptic. Now, this is just the case of the 
 moon at the time of the harvest home, about 
 the time of the autumnal equinox. The sun 
 being then in Libra, and the moon, when full, 
 being, of course, opposite to the sun, or in 
 Aries, and moving eastward, in or near the 
 ecliptic, at the rate of about thirteen degrees 
 per day, would descend but a small distance 
 below the horizon for five or six days in 
 succession that is, for two or three days be-
 
 THE MOON'S MOTIONS. 73 
 
 fore, and the same number of days after, the 
 full and would consequently rise during all 
 these evenings nearly at the same time 
 namely, a little before, or a little after, sun- 
 set so as to afford a remarkable succession 
 of fine moonlight evenings." 84 
 
 Something may be here appropriately said 
 with regard to the supposed arrest of the 
 moon's motion at the command of Joshua. 
 We do not for a moment hesitate to pro- 
 nounce the story to be apocryphal in essence 
 and poetical in form. It never should have 
 been taught as miracle or history. Three ob- 
 jections are fatal to its acceptance as fact. 
 First, it is unscientific. Whatever those who 
 are addicted to the dogma of Biblical infalli- 
 bility may now advance in their attempt to 
 reconcile Scripture with science, the almost 
 unanimous opinion hitherto held of the occur- 
 rence has been that the sun and moon actually 
 stood still during a whole day. Dr. Richard 
 Watson's fourth letter of his Apology for the 
 Bible, in reply to Thomas Paine, is said in 
 Smith's Dictionary of the Bible to have forcibly 
 stated the " literal and natural interpretation of 
 the text as intended to describe a miracle."
 
 74 LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 This was the "orthodox" view. Theories of 
 an optical illusion, and so forth, are but forced 
 and feeble efforts to evade the catholic inter- 
 pretation, till recently accepted as true, though 
 now resigned as truthless. Honesty is the 
 best policy in scriptural hermeneutics as in 
 everything else ; and it is not honest to main- 
 tain a popular tenet as a matter of life or death 
 till it is shown to be untenable, and then to 
 veer round with the wind merely to save 
 appearances. It is better to acknowledge 
 frankly that our Biblical boundaries are held 
 subject to the rectifications of frontier which 
 science may require. So shall we save our- 
 selves from the stultification which results from 
 commitment to an exegesis in one age which 
 has to be abandoned in the next. Scripture 
 writers and readers may err, for they are 
 human ; nature cannot, for it is Divine. Now 
 science demonstrates that for the sun to stop in 
 his course means that the earth must stand 
 still, for in relation to the earth the sun is 
 stationary. But Dr. Thomson " computed that 
 if by any sudden shock the earth were arrested 
 in its orbit, the heat generated by the impulse 
 would be equal to 1 1 '200 degrees of the centi-
 
 THE MOON'S MOTIONS. 75 
 
 grade thermometer, even if the capacity of our 
 planet for heat were as low as that of water ; it 
 would therefore be mostly reduced to vapour, 
 and should the earth then fall to the sun, as it 
 certainly would do, the quantity of heat de- 
 veloped by striking on the sun would be 400 
 times greater." 8s But no physical catastrophe 
 took place in the days of Joshua, ergo, the 
 miracle is a myth. Secondly, the story is 
 unmoral. Such a stupendous sign, had it 
 happened, would have had a worthy purpose. 
 What was the end to be served on this occa- 
 sion ? The mightiest miracle on record was 
 wrought to enable a bloodthirsty people to 
 "avenge themselves upon their enemies"! Cre- 
 dat Jud<zus Apella. It is a wicked libel upon 
 the God of love to imagine that He would in- 
 terrupt the harmony of the solar system for the 
 sake of a " great slaughter." It would be a 
 devil's deed ; and therefore, in the name of the 
 Father of all, Amorites as well as Israelites, we 
 declare the legend false. Thirdly, the story is 
 unhistorical. That is to say, Joshua never 
 commanded the sun and moon to stand still ; 
 or, if he uttered the bold apostrophe, he knew 
 nothing of the existing record. The unknown
 
 76 LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 author or editor of the Book of Joshua foisted 
 the fiction in as a quotation from the Book of 
 Jasher, which could not have been written 
 before the time of David (see 2 Sam. ii. 18), 
 500 years after Joshua, and which was but a 
 collection of floating traditions and frag- 
 mentary songs, without historic foundation. 
 The Speakers Commentary tears up the tale 
 by the roots : " Is the Book of Joshua com- 
 mitted to the upholding of this marvel in the 
 heavens as having actually taken place ? 
 Answer may perhaps reasonably be given in 
 the negative. The whole passage may, and 
 even ought, on critical grounds, to be taken as 
 a fragment, of unknown date and uncertain 
 authorship, interpolated into the text of the 
 narrative, the continuity of which is broken by 
 the intrusion " (Joshua, p. 58). We shall best 
 conserve what is Divine in the Bible by con- 
 ceding what is human therein ; while the 
 deification of error threatens the dethronement 
 of truth. 
 
 Before we quit the moon's motions, a word 
 may be in season respecting the myth of the 
 music of the spheres, which has come down to 
 us from the school of Pythagoras, the first
 
 THE MOON'S MOTIONS. 77 
 
 " philosopher,* or wisdom-lover, all of whose 
 thoughts upon the mystery of number, as 
 Maurice says, combined themselves with musi- 
 cal feelings and associations. "Whence came 
 that strange disposition of thoughts and words 
 into verse ? Whence the fascination of melody 
 and tune ? Whence, if number be not the 
 secret law, the moving soul of the universe ? " 86 
 Pythagoras and his followers seem to have 
 ascribed to the stars a certain musical rhythm ; 
 they were supposed to create harmony in their 
 orbits, and thus to keep the motions of the 
 universe in time and tune. Adam Smith, 
 alluding to these " proportionable motions," 
 adds, "It seems to have been the beauty of 
 this system that gave Plato the notion of some- 
 thing like an harmonic proportion to be dis- 
 covered in the motions and distances of the 
 heavenly bodies, and which suggested to the 
 earlier Pythagoreans the celebrated fancy of the 
 music of the spheres ; a wild and romantic idea, 
 yet such as does not ill correspond with that 
 admiration which so beautiful a system, recom- 
 mended too by the graces of novelty, is apt to 
 inspire." 8? Our encyclopedian Shakespeare, of 
 course, alludes to this celestial concert :
 
 78 LUNAR SCIENCE. 
 
 11 There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st, 
 But in his motion like an angel sings, 
 Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim." 88 
 
 And Jean Baptiste Rousseau, with all of a 
 Frenchman's fervour, sings : 
 
 " Les cieux instruisent la terre 
 A reVerer leur Auteur. 
 Tout ce que leur globe enserre 
 Celebre un Dieu cre'ateur. 
 Quel plus sublime cantique 
 Que ce concert magnifique 
 De tous les celestes corps ! 
 Quelle grandeur infinie ! 
 Quelle divine harmonic 
 Resulte de leurs accords ! " 8 ' 
 
 The music of the spheres was a dream, no 
 doubt ; and, like other visions of childhood, 
 it is doomed to vanish with the manhood of 
 the world. But we can never forget these 
 fancies altogether ; for which of us would be 
 now a man if he had not been first a child ? 
 But if the wheels of nature turn silently on 
 their axles, if the burning seraphim which glow 
 through infinite space have no voice of their 
 own, they lack no chorus to accompany their 
 sublime movements. There is a " music of the 
 moon," which " sleeps in the plain eggs of the
 
 THE MOON'S MOTIONS. 79 
 
 nightingale," and awakes to " the beauty of a 
 thousand stars." There is an early bird that 
 calls the sun, when 
 
 " at heaven's gate she claps her wings, 
 The morn not waking till she sings." 
 
 And above all the feathered tribes is heard 
 the swell of the saintly Psalm, whose oriental 
 beauty and Divine melody no science will ever 
 be able or willing to mar : 
 
 " The heavens are declaring the glory of God, 
 And the expanse is displaying the work of His hands. 
 Day unto day is uttering speech, 
 And night unto night is breathing out knowledge. 
 There is no speech and there are no words ; 
 Their voice is not to be heard." 
 
 " What though, in solemn silence, all 
 Move round the dark terrestrial ball ; 
 What though no real voice nor sound 
 Amidst their radiant orbs be found ; 
 In reason's ear they all rejoice, 
 And utter forth a glorious voice ; 
 For ever singing as they shine, 
 ' The Hand that made us is Divine ! ' "
 
 NOTES. 
 
 1. The Poetical Works of William Broome; Cooke's 
 
 Edition. London, 1796, p. 81. 
 
 2. Meditations and Contemplations, by James Hervey, 
 
 A.M. London, 1824, p. 234. 
 
 3. Historical Survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients, by 
 
 Sir G. C. Lewis. London, 1862, p. 2. 
 
 4. Critique of Practical Reason, by Immanuel Kant. Lon- 
 
 don, 1879, p. 376. 
 
 5. Astronomy, by J. Rambosson. Translated by C. B. 
 
 Pitman. London, 1875, P- S^ 1 - 
 
 6. The Moon, by Edmund Neison. London, 1876, p. 85. 
 
 7. Outlines of Astronomy, by Sir John F. W. Herschel, 
 
 Bart. London, 1869, p. 282. 
 
 8. Mappa Selenographica. Auctoribus Guil. Beer et 
 
 Joanne H. Maedler. Berolini, 1834. 
 
 9. Mondcharte, von W. G. Lohrmann. H erausgegeben 
 
 von Dr. J. F. J. Schmidt. Leipzig, 1878. 
 
 10. Dar-thula. The Poems of Ossian. Translated by 
 
 James Macpherson. London, 1807. 
 
 11. Elementary Lessons in Astronomy, by J. Norman 
 
 Lockyer, F.R.S. London, 1876, p. 89. 
 
 12. Popular Astronomy, by George Biddell Airy, Astronomer 
 
 Royal. London, 1866, p. 67.
 
 82 NOTES. 
 
 13. God's Glory in the Heavens, by William Leitch, D.D. 
 
 London, 1863, p. 27. 
 
 14. Popular Astronomy, by Francois Arago. London, 
 
 1858, vol. ii. p. 416. 
 
 15. A Manual of Budhism, by R. Spence Hardy. London, 
 
 1880. Note to p. 23. 
 
 1 6. Astronomical Myths, based on Flammarion's History oj 
 
 the Heavens. London, 1877, p. 172. 
 
 1 7. Dissertation on the Knowledge of the Ancients in Astro- 
 
 nomy, by John Rogers, M.D. London, 1755, P- I2 
 
 1 8. The Spectator, No. 565, by Joseph Addison. 
 
 19. The Poetical Works of Lord Byron : Childe Harold's 
 Pilgrimage, iv. 27. 
 
 20. The Treasury of Science, by Frederick Schoedler, 
 
 Ph.D. London, 1865, p. 166. 
 
 21. The Midnight Sky, by Edwin Dunkin, F.R.S. Lon- 
 
 don, 1879, p. 263. 
 
 22. Descriptive Astronomy, by George F. Chambers, 
 
 F.R.A.S. Oxford, 1867, p. 81. 
 
 23. A Treatise on Astronomy, by Elias Loomis, LL.D. 
 
 New York, 1870, p. 118. 
 
 24. Popular Astronomy, by Simon Newcomb, LL.D. 
 
 New York, 1882, p. 323. 
 
 25. A Complete System of Astronomy, by the Rev. S. 
 
 Vince, M.A., F.R.S. London, 1814, ii. p. 255. 
 
 26. The Childhood of Religions, by Edward Clodd, 
 
 F.R.A.S. London, 1875, p. n. 
 
 27. Heroes of Science: Astronomers, by E. J. C. Morton. 
 
 London, 1882, p. 13. 
 
 28. The Talmud, by Joseph Barclay, LL.D. London, 
 
 1878, p. 150. 
 
 29. Hardy's Manual of Budhism, p. 20. 
 
 30. Ibid., p. ii.
 
 NOTES, 83 
 
 31. A Dictionary in Sanskrit and English, by H. H. 
 
 Wilson. Calcutta, 1874, p. 712. 
 
 32. The Marvels of the Heavens, by Camilla Flammarion. 
 
 London, 1870, p. 256. 
 
 33. The Connexion of the Physical Sciences, by Mary 
 
 Somerville. London, 1877, p. 70. 
 
 34. The Poetical Works of James Thomson: Autumn, 1088- 
 
 1102. London, 1850. 
 
 35. A History of Neiu York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker. 
 
 London, 1839, p. i. 
 
 36. Richard A. Proctor, in the Cornhill Magazine for 
 
 August, 1873, p. 179. 
 
 37. Lewis's Astronomy of the Ancients, p, 3. 
 
 38. The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell : Moonlight. 
 
 London, 1858, p. 414. 
 
 39. The History of Greece, by George Grote, D.C.L 
 
 London, 1872, i. 317. 
 
 40. Hardy's Manual of Budhism, p. 20. 
 
 41. The Poetical Works of Samuel Butler (Gilfillan's 
 
 Edit.). Edinburgh, 1854, i. 176. 
 
 42. The Works of Rabelais. London, 1871, p. 27. 
 
 43. Grosart's Fuller's Worthies Library, facke Jugelet 
 
 (assumed date, 1563), vol. iv. p. 526. 
 
 44. Popular Tales of the West Highlands, orally collected 
 
 by J. F. Campbell. Edinburgh, 1860, i. 272. 
 
 45. Selections from the Talmud. Translated by H. 
 
 Polano. London, p. 216. 
 
 46. Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, by Robert 
 
 Chambers. London, 1860, p. 20. 
 
 47. The Poetical Works of John Milton : Paradise Lost, 
 
 Book iv. 
 
 48. The Moon, by J. Nasmyth and J. Carpenter. Lon- 
 
 don, 1874, p. 1 8.
 
 84 NOTES. 
 
 49. The Cor nhil I Magazine for August, 1873, P- l %6- 
 
 50. Miscellaneous Essays, by H. T. Colebrooke. London, 
 
 1873, i. 171. 
 
 51. The History of Mexico, by Abbe D.Francesco Saver io 
 
 Clavigero. Translated from the Italian by Charles 
 Cullen. London, 1787, i. 248. 
 
 52. The Childhood of the World, by Edward Clodd. 
 
 London, 1875, p. 62. 
 
 53. The Works of Ben Jonson : The Song of Hesperus. 
 
 From Cynthia's Revels. 
 
 54. Elements of Physiophilosophy, by Lorenz O'Kew, M.D. 
 
 London, 1847, PP- 5 2 > 5 6. 
 
 55. The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. London 
 
 (Moxon), p. 543. 
 
 56. The Marvels of the Heavens, by Camille Flammarion. 
 
 London, 1870, p. 247. 
 
 57. A New Theory of the Earth, by William Whiston, M.A. 
 
 Cambridge, 1708, p. 368. 
 
 58. The Heavens, by Amedee Guillemin. Fourth Edition. 
 
 London, 1871, p. 143. 
 
 59. The Poetry of Astronomy, by R. A. Proctor. London, 
 
 1881. 
 
 60. Popular Astronomy, by Simon Newcomb, LL.D. 
 
 New York, 1882, p. 315. 
 
 61. The Poetical Works of John Keats: Endymion, 
 
 Book III. London, 1876. 
 
 62. Astronomical Myths, based on Flammarion, by John 
 
 F. Blake. London, 1877, p. 220. 
 
 63. Urania : or a Compleat View of the Heavens, by John 
 
 Hill, M.D. London, 1754. Art, "Moon." 
 
 64. Cosmos, by Alexander von Humboldt. Sabine's 
 
 Edition, p. cxxx. 
 
 65 A Complete System of Astronomy, by the Rev. S. Vince, 
 M.A., F.R.S. London, 1814, i. 207.
 
 MOTES. 85 
 
 66. Astronomy, by J. Rambosson. London, 1875, p. 201. 
 
 67. Sonnets, by Sir Philip Sidney. 
 
 68. Historical and Statistical Information of the Indian 
 
 Tribes, by Henry R. Schoolcraft. Philadelphia, i. 
 271. 
 
 69. Historical and Critical Commentary : Genesis, by M. 
 
 M. Kalisch, Ph.D., M.A. London, 1858, p. 14. 
 
 70. A Talmudic Miscellany. London, 1878, p. 181. 
 
 71. Elementary Lessons in Astronomy, by J. Norman 
 
 Lockyer, F.R.S. London, 1876, p. 90. 
 
 72. Remarks on the Astronomy of the Brahmins. Works 
 
 of John Playfair. Edinburgh, 1822, p. 150. 
 
 73. Hibbert Lectures on the Religions of India, by F. 
 
 Max Miiller, M.A. London, 1878, p. 187. 
 
 74. Hibbert Lectures on the Religion of Ancient Egypt, by 
 
 P. Le Page Renouf. London, 1880, p. 116. 
 
 75. The Antiquities of Greece, by John Potter, D.D. 
 
 Edinburgh, 1818, p. 524. 
 
 76. Roman Antiquities, by Alexander Adam, LL.D. Lon- 
 
 don, 1825, pp. 300-302. 
 
 7 7. Ancient Faiths embodied in Ancient Names, by Thomas 
 Inman, M.D. London, 1873, ii. p. 858. 
 
 78. The Races of Man, by Charles Pickering, M.D. Lon- 
 
 don, 1851, pp. 194, 67, 63. 
 
 79. Information respecting the History, Condition, and Pro- 
 
 spects of the Indian Tribes of the United States, by H. 
 R. Schoolcraft, LL.D. Philadelphia, Part V., p. 
 276. 
 
 80. Ibid. Part I., p. 237. 
 
 8 1. Ibid. Part IV., pp. 239, 240. 
 
 82. Ibid. Part V., p. 171. 
 
 83. Waver ley ; or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since, by Sir Walter 
 
 Scott, Bart. Note to chap, xxxviii.
 
 86 NOTES. 
 
 84. Letters on Astronomy, by Denison Olmsted, A.M. Bos- 
 
 ton (U. S.), 1842, p. 177. 
 
 85. On Molecular and Microscopic Science, by Mary Somer- 
 
 ville. London, 1869, i. 27. 
 
 86. Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy. Part I. : Ancient 
 
 Philosophy, by F. D. Maurice, M.A. London, 1850, 
 
 P-95- 
 
 87. Essays, by Adam Smith, LL.D., F.R.S. London, 
 
 1869, p. 345. 
 
 88. The Merchant of Venice, Act V., Scene i. 
 
 80. (Euvres Completes de J. B. Roitsseau. Tome Premier. 
 Paris, !797, p. 3.
 
 INDEX OF NAMES, ETC. 
 
 Adam, A. 
 
 Addison. 
 
 Airy, Sir G. B. 
 
 American Indians. 
 
 Anaxagoras. 
 
 Anaximander 
 
 Antiphon. 
 
 Arago. 
 
 Aristarchus. 
 
 Athenians. 
 
 Barclay, Dr. J 
 
 Beer and Madler. 
 
 Berosus. 
 
 Blake, J. F. 
 
 Bond, G. P 
 
 Bouger. 
 
 Brahmins. 
 
 Broome. 
 
 Buddhists. 
 
 Butler, J. 
 
 Butler, S. 
 
 Byron, Lord. 
 
 Campbell, J. F. 
 
 Campbell, T. 
 
 Carlyle, T. 
 
 Chambers, G. F. 
 
 Chambers, R. 
 
 Claudian. 
 
 Clavigero. 
 
 Clodd, E. 
 
 Colebrooke, H. T. 
 
 Columbus. 
 
 Comanches. 
 
 Creeks. 
 
 David's Psalm. 
 
 De la Rue, W. 
 
 Democritus. 
 
 Dunkin, E. 
 
 Egyptians. 
 
 Empedocles. 
 
 Eratosthenes. 
 
 Esquimaux. 
 
 Flammarion. 
 
 French. 
 
 Galileo. 
 
 Geminus.
 
 88 
 
 INDEX OF NAMES, ETC. 
 
 German 
 
 Greeks. 
 
 Grote, G. 
 
 Guillemin, A. 
 
 Gussew. 
 
 Hansen. 
 
 Hardy, R. Spence. 
 
 Hebrews. 
 
 Hegel. 
 
 Heraclitus. 
 
 Herodotus. 
 
 Herschel, Sir J. 
 
 Herschel, Sir W. 
 
 Hervey, James. 
 
 Hesiod. 
 
 Highlanders. 
 
 Hill, Dr. J. 
 
 Hindus. 
 
 Holmes, O. W. 
 
 Homer. 
 
 Humboldt. 
 
 Indians, East. 
 
 Inman, Dr. T. 
 
 Jacke Jugeler. 
 
 Jasher, Book of. 
 
 Johnson, Dr. S. 
 
 Jonson, Ben. 
 
 Joshua. 
 
 Julius Caesar. 
 
 Kalisch, M. M. 
 
 Kant. 
 
 Keats. 
 
 Kenistenos 
 
 Knickerbocker. 
 
 Lagrange. 
 
 Laplace. 
 
 Lardner, D. 
 
 Leitch, Dr. W. 
 
 Lewis, Sir G. C. 
 
 Locke, J. 
 
 Lockyer, J. N. 
 
 Loomis, E. 
 
 Lucretius. 
 
 Mac Farlane's Lantern. 
 
 Mallet. 
 
 Maurice, F. D. 
 
 Mexicans. 
 
 Milton. 
 
 Morton, E. J. C. 
 
 Miiller, Max. 
 
 Nasmy th and Carpenter. 
 
 Neison, Edmund. 
 
 Newcomb, S. 
 
 Norse Tale. 
 
 Numa. 
 
 O'Kew. 
 
 Olmsted. 
 
 Ossian. 
 
 Ovid. 
 
 Parish Lantern. 
 
 Parmenides. 
 
 Peripatetics. 
 
 Persian. 
 
 Pharnaces. 
 
 Pickering, Dr. C. 
 
 Plato.
 
 INDEX OF NAMES, ETC. 
 
 Playfair, John. 
 Plutarch. 
 Potter, Dr. John. 
 Proctor, R. A. 
 Rabbi Meir. 
 Rabelais. 
 Rambosson, J. 
 Renouf, Page. 
 Rogers, Dr. J. 
 Romans. 
 Rousseau, J. B. 
 Rutherford, L. M. 
 Schmidt, Julius. 
 Schoedler, F. 
 Schoolcraft, H. R. 
 Scott, Sir W. 
 Shakespeare. 
 Shelley. 
 Sidney, Sir P. 
 Smith, Adam. 
 
 Socrates. 
 Somerville, Mrs. 
 Southey. 
 Stoics. 
 Tacitus. 
 Talmud. 
 Tennyson. 
 Thales. 
 
 Thomson, James. 
 Thomson, Sir Wm. 
 Tyndall, John. 
 Verne, Jules. 
 Vince, S. 
 Whiston, W. 
 White, H. K. 
 Wilson, H. H. 
 Wilson, John. 
 Winnebagoes. 
 Xenophanes. 
 Zollner. 
 
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