Page:A discovery that the moon has a vast population of human beings.djvu/59

 Atlantic and Pacific, the Northern and the Southern oceans, leaving here and there tracts of cool, dry land for man to inhabit at the word of his Creator. Nor did the office of the moon stop here. While it was upheld in space by the attraction of the earth, it returned the compliment by exercising a reciprocal attraction upon the waters for which it had created beds. With the beautiful regularity which is the characteristic of heavenly bodies, it affected them at uniform intervals, causing the tides to flow and to ebb, and to vibrate between the spring and the neap flow. Lastly, it relieved the earth of a vast quantity of superincumbent matter, equal, in fact, to over one-fiftieth of the whole bulk of the planets One must imagine the earth in the condition of a gentleman who has dined copiously, and whose interior is troubled by an unusual burden; the convulsion which led to the creation of the moon is similar to the effect of the dose which the gentleman, if he be wise, will instantly take.

In departing from us, and setting up for herself, the moon forgot some articles of baggage which were essential to her future comfort and prosperity. Among these were air and water. How we came by these two useful commodities it were hard to say.

This is made quite certain by the discoveries of astronomers. Rains, dews, oceans, lakes, bail, snow, clouds, are all unknown to the moon. Nothing shields its surface from the burning rays of the sun. Wherever the light of that fierce luminary penetrates the moon's surface is incessantly hot.

Of volcanic origin, the moon is true to its descent. It is full of volcanoes, most of which, however, perhaps from a conviction of the uselessdess of further action—there being nothing to destroy, and no one even to see their explosions are now silent and torpid. But they wrought out their destiny so long and so faithfully, that the surface of the moon is frightfully disfigured and uneven, Switzerland is a prairie compared to the smoothest part of the moon's surface. It is nothing but incessant mountain and hollow. Lunar Alps and Rocky Mountains intersect every few miles of the surface. The Himalayas would be unnoticed among the gigantic ranges which ornament the lunar superficies. And the projections, mighty as they are, are but trifling in comparison with the hollows. It would seem as though the moon, with apish weakness, had tried to imitate the earth in throwing off space for rivers and oceans —forgetting that it contained no water to fill the cavities. Astronomers have made the most extraordinary discoveries in reference to these lunar hollows. Some of them appear to be about fifty miles deep, and a hun-