52 No7i-exlstence in the Moon of Clouds, Seas^ S^c. 



the small size of the satellite might induce us to expect, it is 

 also possible that local causes might occasionally disturb and 

 obscure it, especially during the night ; and that would explain 

 why the appearances to which we have just been alluding are 

 seen only near the time when the sun rises upon a particular 

 region of the moon, or towards its obscured margin. 



As yet we can in no way value, even by approximation, the 

 thickness or density of this covering. It is probably much 

 smaller even than the maximum arrived at by Bessel, viz. ^i^th 

 part of the density of our atmosphere, and it is too feeble to be 

 able to produce, in ordinary cases, the effects of refracting or 

 obscuring objects. 



So far as the different classes of celestial bodies, viz. suns, 

 planets, satellites, and comets appear essentially to differ in 

 their various relations, and to have, in common, scarcely any 

 thing more than what is a necessary consequence of the law of 

 universal gravitation, we may also regard it as probable that 

 the enveloping gases of these bodies are different, not only in 

 their relative quantities, but still more in their constitution and 

 in their chemical relations. 



6. Non-existence in the Moon of Clouds, Seas, S^c» — The non- 

 existence of a lunar atmosphere must sweep away all hypotheses 

 concerning clouds, smoke, nebulosities, rain, snow, &c. occa- 

 sioned by the presence of water, as well as the existence of wa- 

 ter itself. From this circumstance it follows, that there is a 

 complete and total difference between the surfaces of the earth 

 and the moon, in relation to the whole economy of organized 

 nature. The moon, then, is in no respect a copy, and far less 

 a colony, of this earth. It is impossible to compare with each 

 other the planetary and lunar vital forces ; and the ulterior dis- 

 cussion, whether the moon is inhabited by men, must appear 

 absolutely superfluous.* 



No more can there be any seas in the moon. The hemi- 

 spheres, both visible and invisible, must be continents through- 



* MM. Beer and Madler have remarked in the preface of their work, that, 

 as the distance of a German mile is the farthest that the most piercing sight 

 can distinguish a man, or the largest of terrestrial animals, without the aid 

 of glasses, and, as our distance from the moon amounts to 51,000 of these miles, 



