Page:Gods Glory in the Heavens.djvu/98

80 detected. Perhaps the only effect for which there is tolerable probability, is the influence of the full moon in dispelling light fleecy clouds. This is effected by the heat of the moon which is expended in the higher strata of the air—the heat being employed in converting the clouds into invisible vapour.

While science is lessening the influence of the moon in one direction, it is extending it in another. The moon is now found to be a magnet, and to exercise an influence on the magnetic elements of our globe. The oscillations of the barometer are found to be slightly affected by the phases of the moon. The rays of the moon are found to have a chemical influence like those of the sun, and its heat, though insignificant, has at last been measured. These physical effects render it not improbable that the moon may influence the weather and the human constitution, but the precise effects are yet to be discerned. The effects hitherto ascribed to the moon have been shewn to be either fanciful, or, when real, produced by other causes. But admitting all this, there is a wide enough margin for the undoubted uses of the moon.