Part 26 (1/2)

It becahost was seen at Patricroft!

A barge was silently gliding along the canal near ure in white

”Itthe trees with a coffin in its are that he iht was reported at the stations along the canal, and also at Wolverhampton, which was the boatman's headquarters He told the people at Patricroft on his return journey what he had seen, and great was the excitement produced The place was haunted: there was no doubt about it! After all, the ruhost was ht-shi+rt, and the coffin wasfroht of the heavens at ht

My a telescope of considerably greater power than that which I possessed

I made one of twenty inches dia many of the inconveniences and even personal risks that attend the use of such instrue telescope, see p 338) It had been necessary to et at the eyepiece, especially when the objects to be observed were at a high elevation above the horizon

I now prepared to do soan my systematic researches upon the Moon I carefully and minutely scrutinised the marvellous details of its surface, a pursuit which I continued for many years, and still continue with ardour until this day My method was as follows: --

I availedon the investigation I e sheets of grey-tinted paper, of such selected portions of the Moon as embodied the most characteristic and instructive features of her wonderful surface I was thus enabled to graphically represent the details with due fidelity as to forinal in its ht and shade

I thus educated my eye for the special object by systematic and careful observation, and at the same time practised my hand in no less careful delineation of all that was so distinctly presented to me by the telescope--at the side of which my sheet of paper was handily fixed

I became in a manner familiar with the vast variety of those distinct manifestations of volcanic action, which at some inconceivably remote period had produced these wonderful features and details of the moon's surface So far as could be observed, there was an entire absence of any agency of change, so that their forinal cosmical heat of the moon had passed rapidly into space The surface, with all its wondrous details, presents the sao

This consideration vastly enhances the deep interest hich we look upon the moon and its volcanic details It is totally without an atmosphere, or of a vapour envelope, such as the earth possesses, and which must have contributed to the conservation of the cosmical heat of the latter orb The moon is of relatively s power It inal stock of cos about the final terive it so peculiar an aspect In the case of the earth the internal heat still continues in operation, though in a vastly reduced degree of activity Again in the case of the moon, the total absence of water as well as atmosphere has removed from it all those denudative activities which, in the earth, have acted so powerfully in effecting changes of its surfaces as well as in the distribution of its materials

Hence the appearance of the wonderful details of the moon's surface presents us with objects of inconceivably ree] General structure of Lunar craters

Another striking characteristic of the nitude of its volcanic crater forreatest on the surface of the earth are reduced to insignificance

Paradoxical as the statenitude of the rey in theonly about one-eightieth part of the bulk of the earth, the force of gravity on the moon's surface is only about one-sixth And as eruptive force is quite independent, as a force, of the law of gravitation, and as it acted with its full energy on matter, which in the ent flight from the vent of the volcanoes, free from any atmospheric resistance, and thus secured an enormously wider dispersion of the ejected scoriae Hence the building up of those enor-formed craters which are seen in such vast nu no less than a hundred miles in diameter, hich those of Etna and Vesuvius are the merest , that the frequency of a central cone within these ring-shaped lunar craters supplies us with one of the most distinct and unquestionable evidences of the true nature and mode of the for energy of the volcanic discharge, which, when near its tery to eject the matter far from its vent, becomes deposited around it, and thus builds up the central cone as a sort ofefforts In this way it recalls the exact features of our own terrestrial craters, though the latter are infinitely smaller in comparison When we consider how volcanoes are formed-- by the ejection and exudation of material from beneath the solid crust-- it will be seen how the lunar eminences are formed; that is, by the forcible projection of fluid h which it e] Pico, an isolated Lunar Mountain 8000 feet high

It was in reference to this very interesting subject that I reat isolated volcanic h

[footnote

this illustration exhibits a class of volcanic formations that may be seen on many portions of the moon's surface They are what I would term exudative volcanic e of volcanic roup of which were displayed in the illustration, soh

It exhibits a very different appearance froes, which are for the ential action

In the case of the earth, the hard stratified crust had to adapt itself to the shrunken diaential action is illustrated in our own persons, when age causes the body to shrink in bulk, while the skin, which does not shrink to the same extent, has to accommodate itself to the shrunken interior, and so fore This theory opens up a chapter in geology and physiology orthy of consideration It may alike be seen in the structure of the surface of the earth, in an old apple, and in an old hand

[footnote

The shrunken hand on the other side is that of Mr Nas to The Psychonomy of the Hand, by R Beamish, FRS, author of The Life of Sir M I Brunel, it exhibits a thoroughly mechanical hand, as well as the hand of a delicatethat remarkable expression in the Book of Job, that ”in the hand of all the sons of men God places marks, that all the sons of e] Shrunken Apple and Hand

[footnote

These illustrations serve to illustrate one of the iven the earth's surface its grandest characteristics I h the contraction of the globe as a whole By the action of gravity the for interior; and the superfluous es itself by tangential displacement, and accolobe Hence our h apparently enormous when seen near at hand are merely the wrinkles on the face of the earth

While earnestly studying the details of the reat additional interest to me to endeavour to realise in the mind's eye the possible landscape effect of its marvellous elevations and depressions Here my artisic faculty came into operation I endeavoured to illustrate the landscape scenery of the Moon, in like manner as we illustrate the landscape scenery of the Earth The telescope revealed to es of ht and shade on the moon's surface One of the randeur of lunar scenery is the brilliant light of the sun, far transcending that which we experience upon the earth--enhanced by the contrast with the jet-black background of the lunar heavens,-- the result of the total absence of atmosphere One portion of the , is brilliantly illuminated, while all in shade is dark

While the disc of the sun appears a vast electric light of overpowering rayless brilliancy, every star and planet in the black vault of the lunar heavens is shi+ning with steady brightness at all ti fourteen days'

length of the lunar day or night, no difference on the absolutely black aspect of the lunar heavens can appear That aspect must be eternal there No ree of illuiven to some portions of the Moon's surface by the Earth-shi+ne, when the earth is in such a position with regard to the Moon, as to reflect soht on to it, as the Moon does to the earth

of the darkness of shadows in the Moon can result from the illuht reflected into shadows by the blue sky of our earthly day The intensity of the contrast between light and shade must thus lend another awful aspect to the scenery of the Moon, while deprived of all those char effects which artists term ”aerial perspective,” by which relative distances are rendered cognisable with such tender and exquisite beauty The absence of atmosphere on the Moon causes the most distant objects to appear as close as the nearest; while the co a globe only one-fourth the diameter of the earth, e of view

[Ie] Lunar Mountains and Extinct Volcanic Craters

It is the combination of all these circumstances, which we knoith absolute certainty ives to the contemplation of her marvellous surface, as revealed by the aid of powerful telescopes,--one of the grandest and hts; especially e regard the physical constitution and the peculiar structure of her surface, as that of our nearest planetary neighbour, and also as our serviceable attendant by night

Then there are the Tides, so useful tothe sanitary condition of the river rateful for the Moon's existence on that account alone