588 



MOON, RECENT OBSERVATIONS AND STUDY OF THE. 



gregations of force that upheaved, in compara- 

 tively few localities, great circular mountain- 

 ranges a hundred or a hundred and fifty miles 

 in diameter, down through all the intermediate 

 modifications of size to the delicate, spring-like 

 basins to which the fountains of the Yellow- 

 stone furnish a peculiar parallel. 



Let us now return to that period when the 

 matter composing the moon was beginning to 



THB CLIFFS OF HUYQEN, THE HIGHEST POINT ON THE FACE OF THE LUNAR 

 APENNINES. 



assemble from the oxidized elements of mat- 

 ter pendent as vapor in the atmosphere of the 

 primal world. That the vapors of water were 

 everywhere present in this envelope, is a ques- 

 tion we need not discuss, since it is a recog- 

 nized fact in geological research and obvious 

 tracings upon the surface of the moon prove 

 that it assembled there with the primal aggre- 

 gation of that globe, and the mere holding to- 



gether of the friable masses of its mountains 

 implies its presence in their composition. 

 Without it they would crumble to dust, just as 

 the clays of the earth would do under like cir- 

 cumstances, and the surface of the moon would 

 be a plain without form. From first to last, 

 water would come with the assembling ox- 

 ides, and, as pressure toward the center would 

 increase with bulk, the water, not being elas- 

 tic, would be compelled to 

 move in the direction of the 

 least resistance, which would 

 be outward from the center. 

 That, coming with the later 

 assembling matter, would sink 

 downward until it met the 

 counter- force that was repel- 

 ling the interior waters from 

 the center toward the surface, 

 just as water acts upon our 

 own world. Thus each fresh 

 assemblage of water from the 

 external vapors would join 

 that in the interior, increasing 

 its quantity and joining in its 

 progressive return to the sur- 

 face; and, as the process of 

 the compacting of the mass 

 would be slow, the journey of 

 these waters toward the sur- 

 face would be corresponding- 

 ly slow, so that in the closing 

 stages of creati ve en ergy , w hen 

 the last of these pendent va- 

 pors that could be drawn to- 

 ward the moon by its attrac- 

 tion were assembling upon its 

 surface, the crust itself would 

 be hardening, both by its sur- 

 plus waters sinking downward 

 and their evaporation by the 

 external heat of the sun, and 

 thus organizing resistance to 

 the escape of the waters with- 

 in. The crust, being sun- 

 baked to quite a depth and 

 cemented with a plastic lining 

 on its under side, would be 

 proof against the escape of 

 the water unless a fracture 

 should occur, but the waters 

 in contact with the under side 

 of the crust would be con- 

 stantly disintegrating the clays 

 there, by diluting them and 

 thereby causing them to sepa- 

 rate from the under side as 

 sediment and sink to the bottom of the water. 

 This would simply be an unavoidable process of 

 thinning the crust from the under side, and a 

 time must come when this constant soaking 

 must thin it to a degree that it will begin to 

 yield before the outward or upheaving force of 

 the waters. The first fracture of the crust and 

 its consequent upheaval would take the form of 

 mountain-chains, because the water would un- 



