584 



MOON, RECENT OBSERVATIONS AND STUDY OF THE. 



ated took possession of the moisture in the 

 air and made it visible as clouds. Therefore, 

 all that is proved of the meteorological condi- 

 tions of the lunar atmosphere by the absence 

 of clouds from it, is that there are no thunder- 

 storms there, and that the air of that world is 

 never polluted by the presence of antozone, at 

 least in sufficient quantity to produce a cloud 

 of any considerable magnitude. 



The absence of thunder-storms from the lu- 

 nar world furnishes the proof that it is chiefly 

 composed of oxides ; for oxides are both non- 

 conductors and non-producers of electricity. 

 Glass, the oxide of silicon, is used for insula- 

 tors in telegraphy. The oxidized crust of the 

 earth is from sixteen to twenty miles thick. 

 Interior to this it is entirely composed of mat- 

 ter in its primary forms, as may be inferred 

 from the various metals that make their way 

 to the surface through rifts in the rocks. The 

 whole of the geological series of rocks that 



tricity, with one pole of the circuit in the air 

 and one in the earth, meeting with resistance 

 at the surface of the earth by its encounter 

 with non-conductors. The current is on its 

 way from the battery within to the air-current 

 of its own air-circuit without, or vice versa as 

 the case may be and meeting with resistance 

 from the non-conductors of the earth's surface, 

 its intercepted energy is intensified into a flash 

 or becomes a destructive agent. Had a rod of 

 iron or other conducting metal, sufficient in 

 quantity to conduct the current, interposed 

 between the air and the earth, entering the 

 latter to sufficient depth, no violence would 

 have occurred ; or had the entire globe of the 

 earth been composed of oxides, there would 

 have been no electric disturbance. No elec- 

 trician would think of evolving a current of 

 electricity from glass, porcelain, or clay of any 

 kind ; they are oxides, and would not produce 

 a current. It is, therefore, this resistance of 



A LUNAR MOUNTAIN RANGE. 



overlie this metallic center is not relatively as 

 thick as the shell of an egg, and the metallic 

 center is of necessity a vast galvanic battery. 

 It is, of course, the source of thunder-storms ; 

 just as any other galvanic battery is the source 

 of lesser electric currents. That it is a per- 

 petual source of electric currents is demon- 

 strated by the constant influence exerted upon 

 the compass-needle by the positive and nega- 

 tive poles of the earth ; while the local dis- 

 turbances by which the same needle is affected 

 by the near approach to the surface of iron 

 and other metals in their primary forms attest 

 its potency as an active source of electric dis- 

 turbances. Thunder-storms are merely great 

 local disturbances of these earth-currents; and 

 lightning is not, as formerly supposed, a bolt 

 projected by the flash, but a current of elec- 



the oxidized crust of the earth, interposed be- 

 tween the battery inside and the conducting 

 agencies in the air outside, that develops the 

 destructive energy of the current and its ac- 

 companying detonations, which we call thun- 

 der. Hence it is obvious that if there were no 

 great aggregation of metals, in their primary 

 form, in the earth's interior, there could be 

 no great galvanic battery there, therefore no 

 means of producing powerful currents of elec- 

 tricity, and consequently no thunder-storms. 

 In their absence, no decomposition of the at- 

 mospheric oxygen, and therefore no antozone 

 and no clouds, but a perpetually clear atmos- 

 phere, though by no means lacking in sufficient 

 watery vapor for all the purposes of vegeta- 

 tion. It is a remarkable fact that in localities 

 upon our own earth where clear skies prevail, 



