Part 16 (1/2)

It is the delightful hour when all Nature pauses in the tranquil calleams upon the weary Earth All sound is hushed And soon the stars will shi+ne out one by one in the bosom of the somber firmament Opposite to the sunset, in the east, the Full Moon rises slowly, as it were calling our thoughts toward the ht spreads over space like a dew from Heaven

In the odorous woods, the trees are silhouetted strangely upon the sky, see to stretch their knotted arms toward this celestial beauty On the river, smooth as a mirror, wherein the pale Phoebe reflects her splendor, the e of their future spouse And in response to their prayers, she rends the veil of cloud that hides her froentle bea waters

Froaze, and attracting the particular attention of hts have not been wafted to her pale, yet lu over our silent nights, this celestial lulacial purity, and her limpid rays provoke a reverie full of charm and melancholy Mute witness of terrestrial destinies, her nocturnal fla it in its course as a faithful satellite

The human eye first uplifted to the Heavens was struck, above all, with the brilliancy of this solitary globe, straying aested an easy division of time into months and weeks, and the first astronomical observations were lihter of the Earth, the Moon was born at the limits of the terrestrial nebula, when our world was still no aseous sphere, and was detached from her at soret from her cradle, but attached to the Earth by indissoluble ties of attraction, she rotates round us in a month, from west to east, and this movement keeps her back a little each day in relation to the stars If atch, evening by evening, beginning froht a little farther to the left, or east, than on the preceding evening This revolution of the Moon around our planet produces the phases, and gives the measure of our months

[Illustration: FIG 64--The Full Moon slowly rises]

During her monthly journey she always presents the sa us had i And so we only know of her the vague sketch of a hues

It see down upon us from the Heavens, the uely recall the aspect of a face If we try to draithout the aid of instruions that each interprets in his own fashi+on To the author, for instance, the full Moon has the appearance represented in the following figure The spots reseue huure, as indicated on the lower disk Others see a aroo, a sickle, two heads e, there is a tendency to see a huure in it

If this appearance is helped a little by drawing, it gives the profile of a man's head fairly well sketched, and furnished with an abundant crop of hair (Fig 66) Others go much more into detail, and draoman's head that is certainly too definite, like this of M Jean Sardou (Fig 67) Others, again, like M Zairl being eination about these And yet, on the first suitable occasion, look at the Moon through an opera-glass, a few days after the first quarter, and you will not fail to see the ine the ”kiss in the Moon”

[Illustration: FIG 65--The Moon vieith the unaided eye]

[Illustration: FIG 66--The Man's head in the Moon]

These vague aspects disappear as soon as the Moon is examined with even the least powerful instruments: the spots are better defined, and the illusions of indistinct vision vanish Coraph of the Moon, taken by the author soure, urations, and in the lower region, a lu prolonged to a considerable distance

And yet, from a little way off, does it not form the man's face above indicated?

[Illustration: FIG 67--Woman's head in the Moon]

From the earliest astronomical observations made with the aid of instruments by Galileo, in 1609, people tried to find out what the dark spots could represent, and they were called seas, because water absorbs light, and reflects it less than _terra firht, any ht of the Sun that illuminates it As it rotates round the Earth, and constantly changes its position with respect to the Sun, we see more or less of its illuminated hemisphere, and the result is the phases that every one knows so well

[Illustration: FIG 68--The kiss in the Moon]

[Illustration: FIG 69--Photograph of the Moon]

At the commencement of each lunation, the Moon is between the Sun and the Earth, and its non-illuminated hemisphere is turned toward us This is the New Moon, invisible to us; but two days later, the slientle radiance upon the Earth Gradually the crescent enlarges When the Moon arrives at right angles with ourselves and with the Sun, half the illuminated hemisphere is presented to us This is the first quarter At the time of Full Moon, it is opposite the Sun, and we see the whole of the hemisphere illuhtly corroded at first; it diminishes from day to day, and about a week before the New Moon our fair friend only shows her profile before she once more passes in front of the Sun: this is the last quarter

[Illustration: FIG 70--The Moon's Phases]

When the Moon is crescent, in the first evenings of the lunation, and after the last quarter, the rest of the disk is visible, illuminated feebly by a pale luht It is due to the shi+ne of the Earth, reflecting the light received froht is the reflection of our own sent back to us by the Moon It is the reflection of a reflection

This rotation of the Moon round the Earth is accomplished in twenty-seven days, seven hours, forty-three minutes, eleven seconds; but as the Earth is si round the Sun, when the Moon returns to the sa become displaced relatively to the Sun), the Moon has to travel two days longer to recover its position between the Sun and the Earth, so that the lunar er than the sidereal revolution of the Moon, and takes twenty-nine days, twelve hours, forty-four minutes, three seconds This is the duration of the sequence of phases

This revolution is accomplished at a distance of 384,000 kilometers (238,000 miles) The velocity of the Moon in itsobt is more than 1 kilometer (06214 h space at a velocity alreater

The diameter of the Moon represents 273/1000 that of the Earth, _ie_, 3,480 kilometers (2,157 miles)

Its surface = 38,000,000 square kilometers (15,000,000 square miles), a little more than the thirteenth part of the terrestrial surface, which = 510,000,000 (200,000,000 square miles)