AJONZA MOON. 



51 



grove of Altis, near Olympia, were those of the 

 victors in the Olympic games. There were also 

 many trophies. Buildings were frequently erected 

 in commemoration of distinguished persons or 

 events, which differed greatly in form and splendour. 

 Thus, in Athens, the choragic monuments were 

 erected in honour of those who hail received 

 the prizes as choragi in the theatrical and musical 

 games. In these games it was customary for each 

 of the ten guilds of Athens to select one choragus, 

 who, at his own expense, undertook the regulation 

 and superintendence of the games. Each endea- 

 voured to surpass the other ; the conqueror received 

 a tripod of brass as the prize, which was usually the 

 work of a great artist, and was regarded as an hon- 

 our to his family. This prize was publicly placed on 

 a small edifice or a single pillar, on which the name 

 of the choragus and the date of the games were 

 inscribed. A particular street in Athens was appro- 

 priated to these monuments, called the street of 

 tripods. Some of these have been preserved to our 

 time. The most splendid of all, and the most orna- 

 mented, is the choragic monument, of Lysicrates, 

 usually called the lantern of Demosthenes ; next to 

 this, the monument of Thrasyllus and Thrasycles, 

 and some pillars. The Romans, who contended with 

 the Greeks in the arts, were equally successful in 

 monuments, of which one species is entirely theirs 

 the triumphal arch. (See Triumphal Arch.) The 

 earliest tombs in Greece and Rome were either 

 erected on the spot where the ashes of the deceased 

 were deposited, or in some other place chosen at 

 pleasure. These latter were termed cenotaphs. 

 Both kinds were found in the cities or their vicinity, 

 and scattered along the roads, which they ornamented. 

 The rude stone was by degrees transformed into a 

 noble pillar ; subsequently, on a foundation of stone, 

 two small pillars were erected, covered with a pedi- 

 ment, and the intermediate space was destined for 

 the images of the deceased, inscriptions, and bass- 

 reliefs. Small buildings in the form of temples fol- 

 lowed, and these, in time, increased in magnificence. 

 The greatest monument of this description was the 

 (so called) mausoleum (see Artemisia], after which 

 splendid sepulchres are still called mausoleums. 

 Modern Europe presents monuments of both kinds. 

 The public monuments commemorative of great 

 events are principally in the capitals, and many of 

 these are described and represented in Sturm's 

 Architektonische Reiseanmertcungen. A tolerably 

 good collection was given by the abbe' de Lubersac, 

 in his Discours sur les Monumens publics de tous lea 

 Ages et de tous les Peuples (Paris, 1776, folio). 

 Many of the monuments ot France are represented in 

 Millin's Antiquites Nationales. The royal Academic 

 des Inscriptions has contributed to turn the atten- 

 tion of the French artists to this subject. 



MONZA; a city of the Lombardo- Venetian king- 

 dom, seven miles from Milan, on the Lambro. Its 

 beautiful edifices show that it was once a royal resi- 

 dence ; the streets are regular and well paved, and 

 there are several handsome palaces, among which 

 that of Mirabello contains many fine paintings and 

 works of sculpture. The cathedral erected by Theo- 

 delinda, queen of the Lombards, in the seventh cen- 

 tury, is worthy of mention : among its curiosities is 

 the iron crown of the Lombard kings, with the 

 inscription Guai a chi la tocca, which Napoleon 

 placed upon his head in 1805, with the words Dieu 

 me la donne ; gare a ijui la touche. The population 

 is 10,500. It was formerly the residence of the 

 kings of Lombardy. 



MOON is the name given to the satellites which 

 revolve round the primary planets and illuminate 

 them with light reflected from the sun. In common 



language, we mean by moon the particular satellite 

 of our earth. Like the other heavenly bodies, it 

 daily alters its apparent position among the fixed 

 stars, and, in the course of a month, appears to make 

 a complete revolution round the heavens, from west 

 to east, while, at the same time, it has, like the 

 fixed stars, an apparent daily motion from east to 

 west. Among all the heavenly bodies, the moon is 

 the nearest to us. Its mean distance is estimated at 

 about thirty times the diameter of the terrestrial 

 equator, or 237,003 miles. The point at which it 

 approaches nearest the earth is called its perigee; 

 the point of its greatest distance is called the apogee 

 It passes through both these points in each revolu- 

 tion. According as it is nearer to, or farther from 

 the earth, its diameter, as seen from the earth, 

 appears larger or smaller. At its mean distance 

 this amounts to thirty-one minutes and nine seconds. 

 Astronomers make the moon's actual diameter 33 

 times smaller than that of the earth ; therefore the 

 superficies of the moon equals but Ai of the earth's, 

 and its solid contents equals but 5 ' u . In the moon's 

 revolution great inequalities are remarked. These 

 arise mostly from the strong attraction of the sun in 

 the various positions which it assumes relatively to 

 the earth. This was first understood after Newton's 

 discovery of the universality of the law of gravity. 

 Tobias Mayer published the first accurate lunar 

 tables. As the moon completes her revolution about 

 the earth in twenty-seven days, eight hours, or more 

 accurately, in twenty-seven days, seven hours, forty- 

 three minutes, five seconds, it passes daily, on an 

 average, through 13 10' 35" of its course. Besides 

 the double motion of the moon round our earth, and 

 with the earth round the sun, it also revolves on its 

 own axis. It completes a revolution on its own axis 

 in the same time with its revolution round the earth, 

 as appears from its always presenting the same side 

 to the earth. In consequence of this remarkable 

 coincidence, the earth must appear to a spectator on 

 the moon to be always in the zenith. One side of 

 the moon, moreover, never receives the reflection of 

 the sun's rays from the earth, while the other is con- 

 stantly illuminated by it ; both sides, however, are 

 equally illumined by the direct rays of the sun. Some 

 little irregularity has been perceived in the surface of 

 the moon presented to the earth, its spots sometimes 

 appearing more to the north, at others more to the 

 south ; a similar variation is perceived east and 

 west. This phenomenon is denominated the libration 

 of the moon in latitude and longitude. The causes 

 of both have been discovered. (See Libration.) Of 

 all the heavenly bodies, the moon, from its compara- 

 tive proximity to the earth, is the one of which most 

 is known. That it is an opaque body, receiving its 

 light from the sun, is evident from the phenomena of 

 solar and lunar eclipses, but more particularly from 

 the various phases which it presents. Even the 

 naked eye discovers, on the illuminated surface 

 of the moon, several spots, more or less bright ; 

 and a good telescope shows us, in the bright 

 parts on the limits of illumination, prominences 

 and depressions, which are regarded as moun- 

 tains and valleys. The numerous observations 

 of Ilerschel and Schroter, through a number of years, 

 have put the existence of these beyond dispute : 

 Schroter has even undertaken to determine the ele- 

 vation of mountains in the moon. The two heights 

 on the southern limb, which he called Leibnitz and 

 Dorfel, he measured by means of the shade which 

 they cast, knowing, at the same time, the sun's ele- 

 vation with regard to them, and found them to be 

 26,650 feet high ; therefore almost as high as the 

 most elevated summits of the Himalaya. The large 

 dark spots appear, when intersected by the frontier 



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