Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 9.djvu/468

444 the atmosphere, is rejected on the ground that in that case the moon would need some matter whereon to rest, and from which it might derive fuel for its fire. We are informed that, according to Pindar, the earth is propped up all round by pillars with bases of adamant, whereas, according to the Stoics, she has no need of supports, being situate in the centre of the universe toward which all things tend. This last opinion is declared to be untenable, because the earth, whose surface is so broken with elevations and depressions, must then be considered as spherical, and that would imply the existence of antipodes clambering up and down the earth's sides like lizards. Coming back to the principal question under discussion, the solitary interlocutor in this dialogue maintains that, even granting the impossibility of ponderous, earth-like bodies moving in the heavens, it does not follow thence that the moon is not another earth, but only that it happens to be in a region to which it does not by its nature belong. Man, for example, in like manner has his ponderous, earth-like parts in the upper region of his body, in the head, and the warm, fire-like parts in the lower; of his teeth some are directed downward, others upward, but in neither is there anything contrary to Nature. The moon, situate between the sun and the earth, as the liver or other soft viscus lies between the heart and the stomach, transmits heat from the upper regions to us, at the same time dissipating the mists which rise from the earth, purifying and attenuating them by the action of her own heat. Considered as an earth, the moon is a splendid body; as a star it would be a shame to its class; for of all the innumerable heavenly bodies—to quote the author literally—she is the only one that needs another's light! When the sun goes down he is hidden from us by the earth; in an eclipse, on the contrary, by the moon. Hence the earth, owing to its great size, covers the sun entirely, as long as the night endures, while the moon sometimes conceals him totally, but only for a short time. The moon, therefore, is a body like our earth; and inasmuch as it contains nothing that is foul, and enjoys the purest light of heaven, and is filled with genial fires which do not consume like the fires of earth, the moon must contain the most delightful savannas, flames like mountains of light, empurpled zones, and abundance of gold and silver; all this—accounts for the visage in the moon's disk! The objection that the spots on the moon are too large to be thus accounted for is met with the noteworthy proposition that it is the remoteness of the light from the body casting the shadow, and not the size of the body, that makes a shadow large; and if Mount Athos casts a shadow 700 stadia in length, that is a consequence not of its height, but of the sun's great distance. The discussion here is diverted to the question of the habitability of the moon and the fate of our souls after death; of this argument I need only quote the comforting assurance that the devout and the virtuous migrate to the moon, and that from the ether in which they float