THE MOON. 761 



" In all other respects the scene presented to the spectator on the 

 moon was similar ; but, as seen from the lunar Apennines, the glorious 

 orb of earth shone high in the heavens ; and the sun, source of the 

 light then bathing her oceans and continents, lay far down below the 

 level of the lunar horizon. . . . 



"Infinitely more wonderful, however, and transcending in sublimity 

 all that the heavens display to the contemplation of the inhabitants 

 of earth, was the scene presented when the sun himself had risen. I 

 shall venture here to borrow some passages from an essay entitled ' A 

 Voyage to the Sun,' in which a friend of mine has described the aspect 

 of the sun as seen from a station outside that atmosphere of ours 

 which veils the chief glories of the luminary of day : ' The sun's 

 orb was more brilliantly white than when seen through the air, but 

 close scrutiny revealed a diminution of brilliancy toward the edge of 

 the disk, which, when fully recognized, presented him at once as the 

 globe he really is. On this globe could be distinguished the spots 

 and the bright streaks called faculoe. This globe was surrounded with 

 the most amazingly complex halo of glory. Close around the bright 

 whiteness of the disk, and shining far more beautiful by contrast with 

 that whiteness than as seen against the black disk of the moon in 

 total eclipses, stood the colored region called the chromatosphere, not 

 red, as it appears during eclipses, but gleaming with a mixed lustre 

 of pink and green, through which, from time to time, passed the most 

 startlingly brilliant coruscations of orange and golden yellow light. 

 Above this delicate circle of color towered tall prominences and mul- 

 titudes of smaller ones. These, like the chromatosphere, were not red, 

 but beautifully variegated. . . .' 



"Much more might be said on this inviting subject, only that the 

 requirements of space forbid, obliging me to remember that the 

 moon and not the sun is the subject of this treatise. The reader, 

 therefore, must picture to himself the advance of the sun with his 

 splendid and complicated surroundings toward the earth, suspended 

 almost unchangingly in the heavens, but assuming gradually the cres- 

 cent form as the sun drew slowly near. He must imagine also how, 

 in the mean time, the star-sphere was slowly moving westward, the 

 constellations of the ecliptic in orderly succession passing behind the 

 earth at a rate slightly exceeding that of the sun's approach, so that 

 he, like the earth, only more slowly, was moving eastward, so far as 

 the star-sphere was concerned, even while the moon's slow diurnal ro- 

 tation was carrying him westward toward the earth." 



In the last chapter the physical condition of the moon's surface is 

 treated, and the processes by which she probably reached her present 

 condition are discussed at considerable length. 



