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38 this strange island floating in space, we are startled to find it so strange, and yet so like the world that we left behind.

This pleasing similarity may be felt, and the hand of the one omnipotent Architect may be recognised, although we do not find the moon provided with inhabitants. Still it would, no doubt, lend an additional charm, if we had any plausible ground for entertaining such a belief. As soon as the telescope unveiled a world so like our own, in its general aspect, the popular imagination peopled it with living forms, and astronomers strove with one another to gratify the popular wish. On the dark surface, active volcanoes were discovered. The flames were seen to burst forth with great fierceness, and then slowly expire, shewing that there was air to sustain the combustion. Planets and fixed stars were seen to linger on the moon's edge, before they passed behind its disc, just as they ought to do, if there was an atmosphere. All these observations are now discredited; and the inexorable decision of scientific research is, that there is no valid argument for the existence of an atmosphere. Not long ago, an admirable test was afforded by the occultation of Jupiter, and every astronomer was on the alert to discover the result. The figure of the planet ought to be distorted by the atmosphere, if there was really one, and many eyes were strained to detect the distortion. The result was a strange one. Many saw the exact appearance that ought to