918 



Handbook of Nature-Study 



A photograph of the moon. 



THE MOON 

 Teacher's Story 



The moon is in more senses than one an illuminating object for both the 

 earth and the skies. As a beginning for earth study it is an object lesson, 

 illustrating what air and water do for our world and incidentally for us; 

 while as the beginning of the study of astronomy, it is the largest and 

 brightest object seen in the sky at night ; and since it lies nearest us, it is the 

 first natural step from our world to outer space. 



The moon is a little dead world that circles around our earth with one 

 face always towards us, just as a hat-pin thrust into an apple would keep 

 the same side of its head always toward the apple no matter how rapidly the 

 apple was twirled. As we study the face of the moon, thus always turned 

 toward us, we see that it is dark in some places and shining in others, and 

 some ignorant people have thought that the dark places are oceans and the 

 light places, land. But the dark portions are simply areas of darker rocks, 

 while the lighter portions are yellowish or whitish rocks. The dark portions 

 are of such a form that people have imagined them to represent the eyes, 

 nose and mouth of a man's face; but a far prettier picture is that of a 

 woman's uplifted face in profile. The author has a personal feeling on this 

 point, for as a child she saw the man's face always and thought it very ugly 

 and, moreover, concluded that he chewed tobacco; but after she had been 

 taught to find the face of the lady, the moon was always a beautiful object 

 to her. 



The moon is a member of our sun's family, his granddaughter we might 

 call her if the earth be his daughter ; and since the moon has no fires or light 

 of its own, it shines by light reflected from the sun and, therefore, one-half 

 of it is always in shadow. When we see the whole surface of the lighted 

 half we say the moon is full; but when we see only half of the 



