60 SCENERY IN A PATCH 



found four times lighter than the same extent of terrestrial 

 substance. 



THE MOON AND LUNAR PHENOMENA OF OUR SYSTEM. 

 Next to the greater light that rules the day, the most useful 

 and interesting to us of all the bodies in our universe, is 

 the lesser light that rules the night. The proximity of the 

 moon, the relation in -which she is linked to the earth, the 

 power she exerts upon our ocean in drawing up its billows, 

 and the great importance of the lunar theory to safe naviga- 

 tion, have intently fixed the eye of science upon her orb ; 

 while the mild radiance with which she shines in the heav- 

 ens, the advantage of her light to the terrestrial traveller, 

 and the beauty and regularity of her changing phases, have 

 elicited the admiration of barbarian and polished races. 

 The unfailing performance within a definite period of a 

 synodical revolution, or the cycle included between each con- 

 junction with the sun, when she is invisible, called synodi- 

 cal, from the Greek word signifying a coming together, has 

 rendered the moon a convenient time-keeper to men in rude 

 states of society, and won for her the love and respect of 

 savage tribes. Among the wandering hordes of the wes- 

 tern continent such a number of moons measures the duration 

 of a journey, and the lapse of events ; and successive lunar 

 appearances are discriminated by coincident terrestrial oc- 

 currences, as the wild-strawberry moon, the wild rice-gath- 

 ering moon, the ice-moon, the deer-rutting nloon, and the 

 leaf -falling moon. Some of the sacred ceremonies of the 

 Jews, in the early periods of their history, were regulated by 

 the sign of the lunar crescent in the heavens, and the rab- 

 bins relate, that persons were stationed on the tops of the 

 mountains to watch for the first appearance of the moon, 

 which event was proclaimed by signal fires throughout the 

 land. For the last six thousand years the eye of man has 

 gazed with delight upon her face, whether in courtly or in 

 rustic life, from old baronial halls or cottages obscure. The 



