A NEW CRATER IN THE MOON. 



417 



has been revived. An expedition has been dis- 

 patched, has manfully done its work, and has re- 

 turned with a valuable increase to the sum of 

 human knowledge. It remains to consider the 

 next step, and to take care that this oue success 

 shall not be a spasmodic effort, but that it shall 

 be the commencement of continuous work in the 

 same direction, to be persevered in until it is 

 complete. 



The arguments for the continuance and com- 

 pletion of polar discovery are the same as those 

 for its renewal. If the encouragement of mari- 

 time enterprise and the exploration of the polar 

 region were objects of sufficient importance to 

 justify the dispatch of an expedition to commence 

 the work in 1875, those objects still exist, and 

 the arguments for continuing and completing the 

 work are quite as strong in 1878 as they were in 

 1875. Indeed, the success of the late expedi- 

 tion and the experience gained by it give new 

 strength to those arguments; while the recent 

 discoveries add fresh interest to arctic research, 



and give additional scientific importance to its 

 completion. 



There is a vast area, teeming with interest in 

 every branch of inquiry, which is still unknown. 

 There is the gap of four hundred miles between 

 Aldrich's farthest and Prince Patrick Island, to 

 be approached by the Jones Sound route. There 

 is the discovery of the northern side of Green- 

 land, from Beaumont's farthest to Cape Bismarck, 

 on the east coast. There is the exploration of 

 the northern shores of the Franz Josef Land. 

 There is the mysterious Wrangell Land. There 

 is the Northeast Passage. Abundance of glori- 

 ous work in many directions ; but, on the whole, 

 the East Greenland route is the best that can be 

 selected for the next Arctic Expedition. Britain 

 ought not to relax her efforts after one success. 

 There should be continuity in her measures, and 

 there should be steady perseverance in the good 

 work, until the exploration of the unknown re- 

 gion round the north-pole is finished. — Geograph- 

 ical Magazine. 



A NEW CTCATEK IN THE MOON. 



By EICHAED A. PEOCTOE. 



MANY astronomers appear to regard with 

 something like contempt inquiries into the 

 physical condition of the heavenly bodies. The 

 movements of the celestial mechanism alone have 

 interest for them, while the study of the present 

 condition of the sun, moon, and planets, of their 

 probable past and of their probable future, is re- 

 garded as beneath the dignity of the astronomer. 

 This, however, has never been the feeling of the 

 true masters of the science. In old times, when 

 men were utterly unable to obtain information 

 respecting the physical condition of the planets, 

 astronomers were obliged to content themselves 

 with the study of the mere movements, real or 

 apparent, of the heavenly bodies. But from the 

 time when the invention of the telescope enabled 

 astronomers to study the planets as from nearer 

 points of view, all the greatest astronomers, Gali- 

 leo, Huygens, Newton, the Herschels, and oth- 

 ers, have taken as deep an interest in questions 

 relating to the condition of the heavenly bodies 

 as in the mathematical investigation of their mo- 

 tions. There have been, and there are still, as- 

 tronomers who are mere mathematicians, just as 

 there have been and are still mathematicians who 



99 



are mere calculating-machines. Nay, it must in 

 justice be said that some of the most important 

 astronomical discoveries of the age have been due 

 to one-sided astronomers of this kind. But it is 

 impossible to class with the great men who have 

 made astronomy what it is those mathematicians, 

 however skillful, who, unlike Newton and Laplace 

 (greatest among mathematicians as well as among 

 astronomers), seem only to have valued the study 

 of astronomy because of its fruitfulness in mathe- 

 matical problems. 



There are few departments of astronomical 

 research in which the distinction above mentioned 

 is more characteristically presented than in the 

 study of our moon. To the merely mathematical 

 astronomer, the moon simply presents a highly- 

 interesting subject for mathematical computa- 

 tions, and for instrumental observations intended 

 to check such computations, or to suggest fresh 

 matter for calculation. They regard the discov- 

 ery of some minute discrepancy between the ob- 

 served and calculated motions of the moon as 

 infinitely more important than the recognition of 

 any signs of physical change in the moon's sur- 

 face. I believe that if the moon's globe were 



