582 



MOON, RECENT OBSERVATIONS AND STUDY OF THE. 



stage of disintegration had been arrived at, all 

 the matter that had composed the moon would 

 have been vaporized, and would then exist as 

 a part of that composing the tail of the comet, 

 for a comet the world would then be once more. 

 That this would in fact be the state of our 

 world under those circumstances, seems to be 

 demonstrated by the proof that the entire 

 series of rocks that form the geological series 

 are oxides, with the exception of a compara- 

 tively insignificant portion, which are combi- 

 nations with some of the other members of the 

 oxygen sisterhood, such as fluorine, chlorine, 

 sulphur, etc. ; but they all alike came down 

 from the vapors that enveloped the primary 

 world. Witness the expression so frequently 

 met with in geological writings : "About this 

 period [the beginning of the deposition or for- 

 mation of the limestone rocks] the waters of 

 the earth began to give down limestone." But 

 the waters of the earth condensed upon its 

 surface from the vapory condition above it, as 

 soon and as gradually as the cooling of the 

 body permitted their assembling upon it, and 

 before the formation of the earliest limestone 

 they had attained to considerable depth, very 

 nearly to that of the azoic, or lifeless rocks, 

 which overlie the granite. Up to this period 

 of the geological formation, the assembled wa- 

 ters contained no limestone, for there are no 

 traces of its presence in the underlying azoic 

 rocks. This being the case, the oxide of cal- 

 cium, in the form of quicklime-vapors, must 

 1 have descended into the waters, and the atmos- 

 phere being laden with car oonic-acid gas and 

 the waters ^permeated by it, the oxide of cal- 

 cium and this oxide of carbon united in the 

 water, formed an insoluble sediment and sank 

 to the bottom, forming there limestone, chemi- 

 cally known as carbonate of lime. This fact 

 we can demonstrate very simply: Dissolve 

 some quicklime (oxide of calcium) in water, 

 pour off the clear liquid, and breathe into it 

 through a glass tube. The water will imme- 

 diately become milky with the insoluble car- 

 bonate of lime formed by the carbonic acid 

 exhaled from the lungs, uniting with the oxide 

 of calcium and forming limestone, which sinks 

 and forms a layer of carbonate of lime upon 

 the bottom of the vessel, hence " the waters 

 of the earth gave down limestone." All the 

 vast beds of limestone, which are said to cover 

 nearly two thirds of the earth's surface to a 

 depth of sixteen miles, must have been formed 

 in this way and brought down from the vapors 

 enveloping the primary world. Our native 

 globe under such circumstances could not pos- 

 sibly have done otherwise than present splen- 

 did cometic phenomena. When this vast en- 

 velope of the oxidized forms of matter con- 

 densed about the still unoxidized metals of its 

 central mass, they formed the crust that now 

 overlies it and constitutes its geological series 

 of rocks. But there existed in that envelope 

 of vaporized oxides enough beyond what re- 

 turned to the earth to form also the lunar 



globe. Let us consider what the nature of the 

 cooling influences would be, for they may 

 throw some light upon the formation of the 

 moon. 



The geological crust of the earth (its sedi- 

 mentary rocks), formed as fast over the un- 

 derlying surface as the cooling of the molten 

 globe would permit, and the long ages through 

 which that crust was forming, show how grad- 

 ual must have been the cooling and how long 

 the globe at the center must have continued 

 to be an internal source of heat. On the 

 other hand, the low temperature from which 

 the cooling resulted, was derived from sur- 

 rounding space, and therefore was external to 

 the mass and its adhering vapors. The con- 

 densation would begin upon and proceed 

 from the outside boundary of the vapory en- 

 velope. The vapors condensed then would 

 sink toward the center in response to their 

 increased specific gravity. Before proceeding 

 far in the direction of the nucleus, they would 

 encounter an increase of temperature, and con- 

 sequent re-expansion, which would repel them 

 part way back, never quite to where they 

 formerly were, because something had been 

 accomplished toward ultimate condensation by 

 the cold absorbed. This vibrating process 

 would gradually produce increasing condensa- 

 tion on the external limits of the pendent va- 

 pors. Rain, composed of water and various 

 other oxides, would descend ; but the increas- 

 ing temperature into which it was falling would 

 repel it spaceward by revaporizing it, and long 

 ages must pass before these rains could reach 

 the surface of their native globe. The occur- 

 rence of such rains is a well-known geological 

 event; for they descended in large, round 

 drops, falling with such force as to leave their 

 impress in sedimentary clays, so far solidified 

 toward the condition of rock as to retain the 

 impression of the drops, often to half the depth 

 of the drop. These clays subsequently hard- 

 ened into rock and retained the impressions. 

 Geologists call these " carbon-rains," under the 

 impression that there was nothing in the upper 

 air of those days but watery vapor and carbon, 

 inferring from such formation as asphaltum 

 lakes that the material must have come from 

 the air. But time and careful research will 

 probably prove that all forms of oxidized mat- 

 ter, and some others even in their primal condi- 

 tion, assembled from the vapory envelope subse- 

 quent to the period when the molten metallic 

 globe was in complete existence. Even the 

 materials of the granite condensed from the 

 vapory condition,* and the surface it overlaid 

 kept it molten, like glass in a muffle, for its 

 crystallized structure proves it to have slowly 

 cooled from that condition of condensation 

 which we have been considering. But the pro- 

 cess would gradually increase the density and 

 contract the limits of the external regions ot 



* The writer can prove this statement by actual experi- 

 ment, as there is no form of matter composing the earth that 

 he can not chemically return to the gaseous condition. 



