1819.] Scientific Intelligence. 473 
explanation of the passage than appeared to him necessary in a 
work intended for general circulation. I am far from wishing to 
insinuate that the eect allows himself the travelier’s licence, 
but cannot help observing that the circumstance, as it is stated 
_in his work, is calculated to try the faitheof his readers to the 
utmost. 
The passage to which I allude is the account of the appear- 
ance of the moon,* as observed by him on the road from Tornea™ 
to Kiemi, at p.487. After having described the oval appear- 
ance of the moon’s disc, he proceeds : 
“ This changeful scenery still continued, varying at every 
instant : at last there ensued a more remarkable appearance 
than any we had yet witnessed. The vapours dispersed, and 
all the rolling clouds disappeared, excepting a belt collected in 
the form of a ring, highly luminous, around the moon, which now 
appeared in a serene sky, like the planet Saturn augmented to a 
size 50 times greater than it appears through our best telescopes. 
The belt by which the moon’s rays were reflected, became, 
beyond description, splendid, and the clear sky was visible 
between this belt and the full fair orb which it surrounded. 
Certainly if the same phenomenon had been visible in England, 
the whole country would have been full of it from one end of ° 
our island to the other.” 
In reading this passage nothing remarkable is observed; for 
it is easy to conceive that a circle of clouds may have been 
formed through which the orb of the moon was visible, as repre- 
sented in fig. 1. 
But as descriptions in words whether “ demissa per aurem” 
or on paper 
‘© Segnius irritant animos 
Quam que sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus” 
(viz. drawings) ; and as Dr, Clarke has accompanied his descrip~ 
tion with a wood-cut, which places the matter in a point of view 
entirely different, 1 intend on this cut to found my objections. 
Figure 2 is a copy of the representation which the Doctor has 
given of this phenomenon. Now it is evident that to produce 
* The application of the term ‘ planet” to the moon, at p. 485, is, I think, 
of doubtful authority, and should haye been rejected by the philosophic Clarke. 
According to this new nomenclature, the satellites of Jupiter, of Saturn, and of 
Uranus, are all planets; however, ** de minimis non curat lex,” 
