THE MO OX. 759 



that " we know far too little respecting the real details of lunar scenery 

 to form any satisfactory opinion on the subject. If a landscape-painter 

 were invited to draw a picture presenting his conceptions of the 

 scenery of a region which he had only viewed from a distance of a hun- 

 dred miles, he would be under no greater difficulties than the astrono- 

 mer w T ho undertakes to draw a lunar landscape, as it would actually 

 appear to any one placed on the surface of the moon. "We know cer- 

 tain facts we know that there are striking forms of irregularity, that 

 the shadows must be much darker as well during the lunar day as 

 during an earth-lit lunar light, than on our own earth in sunlight cr 

 moonlight, and we know that, whatever features of our own land- 

 scapes are certainly due to the action of water in river, rain, or flood, 

 to the action of wind and weather, or to the growth of forms of ve^e- 

 tation with which we are familiar, ought assuredly not to be shown in 

 any lunar landscape. But a multitude of details absolutely necessary 

 for the due presentation of lunar scenery are absolutely unknown to 

 us. Nor is it so easy as many imagine to draw a landscape which 

 shall be correct even as respects the circumstances known to us. For 

 instance, though I have seen many pictures called lunar landscapes, I 

 have never seen one in which there have not been features manifestly 

 due to weathering and to the action of running water. The shadows, 

 again, are never shown as they would be actually seen if regions of the 

 indicated configuration were illuminated by a sun, but not by a sky 

 of light. Again, aerial perspective is never totally abandoned, as it 

 ought to be in any delineation of lunar scenery. I do not profess to 

 have done better myself in the accompanying lunar landscapes. I 

 have, in fact, cared rather to indicate the celestial than the lunarian 

 features shown in these di-awings. Still, I have selected a class of 

 lunar objects which may be regarded as, on the whole, more charac- 

 teristic than the mountain-scenery usually exhibited. And, by pictu- 

 ring the greater part of the landscape as at a considerable distance, I 

 have been freer to reproduce what the telescope actually reveals. In 

 looking at one of these views, the observer must suppose himself sta- 

 tioned at the summit of some very lofty peak, and that the view shows 

 only a very small portion of what would really be seen under such cir- 

 cumstances in any particular direction. The portion of the sky shown 

 in either picture extends only a few degrees from the horizon, as is 

 manifest from the dimensions of the earth's disk ; and thus it is shown 

 that only a few degrees of the horizon are included in the landscape." 

 Our author then pictures the aspect of the lunar heavens by night 

 and by day. "We have space but for a few passages from this descrip- 

 tion : " To an observer stationed upon a summit of the lunar Apen- 

 nines on the evening of November 1, 1872, a scene was presented un- 

 like any known to the inhabitants of earth. It was near the middle 

 of the long lunar night. On a sky of inky blackness stars innu- 

 merable were spread, among which the orbs forming our constella- 



