ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 375 



as comets and the zodiacal light, and the phenomena seen at the eclipses of 

 the sun, prove to us that there is nebular matter about our solar system. 

 ~\Ve do not serve the cause of truth by condemning so beautiful a theory 

 unheard, and giving it the name of atheistic. Prof. Alexander thought that 

 Laplace himself died believing in a personal Deity. He then proceeded to a 

 discussion of the relative densities and distances of the planets, and from these 

 and other phenomena drew, by mathematical reasoning, confirmations of the 

 hypothesis of Laplace. 



ON THE SURFACE OF THE MOOX. 



Prof. Phillips, of England, in the course of some remarks at the last meet- 

 ing of the British Association, on the Lunar Mountains, observed that daily 

 experience showed that the more their telescopic power was increased, the 

 less circular appeared the lunar craters, and the less smooth the surface of 

 the moon. All was sharp and irritated a perfect representation of its past 

 history. On the much mooted question as to there being traces of the action 

 of water on the surface of the moon as now presented to us, the Professor 

 said that at one time he believed that there was no trace of water to be seen, 

 but he confessed that more recent observations, particularly those made with 

 Lord Rosse's telescope, shook his belief in that opinion. 



At a subsequent meeting, the subject of the physical character of the moon's 

 surface being under discussion, Prof. Phillips commented on the continually 

 growing exactness with which the telescope was applied to the delineation of 

 the lunar scenery, which, to inferior instruments, appearing smooth and even, 

 revealed itself to more powerful scrutiny as altogether uneven, mostly rugged 

 land, deeply cut by chasms, and soaring into angular pinnacles. The so- 

 called seas, under this scrutiny, appear destitute of water, and their surface, 

 under low angles of incident light, becomes roughened with little points and 

 minute craters, or undulated by long winding ridges of very small elevation, 

 comparable to the gravel ridges of Ireland and Scandinavia. On the question 

 thus and in other ways raised for discussion, whether the moon, now devoid 

 of water on the face she presents to us, contains traces of ancient watery 

 movement, Prof. Phillips called attention to the numerous straight rifts and 

 winding " Rillen," as the Germans call them, which, to clear telescopes only, 

 reveal themselves in many tracts of the lunar land. And turning to G-assendi, 

 the mountain which, in connection with Mare Humorum, had been allotted 

 to himself for his survey, according to the system adopted at the. meeting of 

 the Association in 1853, he described its long encircling wall, broken through 

 towards Mare Humorum, duplicate in one part, crossed by three deep narrow 

 clefts in another, and partly interrupted by a great oval crateriform appendage, 

 which is broken down or deficient on the side against the great crater of 

 Gassendi. Here, concentrating to, or diverging from, the smaller crateriform 

 appendage, are seen, but only with good instruments, many branching ridges 

 and hollows, whose stems are towards the small crater, and whose extre- 

 mities reach towards the mountains in the middle of Gassendi. If these are 

 branching tracts of volcanic matter poured out from the smaller crater, their 

 slope will be from it ; if they be due to alluvial action, their slope will be 



