MOON'S ATMOSPHERE "RARE" 6$ 



:. y U-WM to thin beautiful description that the 

 darkness wan " more perfect," and the Mtars Been were 

 numerous, in Home place* than in other* 



ug wan to all a From the 



i England, too, he heard "that the luminous 



vaa seen there, which was 



nowhere visible but while the eclipse was total"! 

 years before Halley conjectural that the cause 

 of the corona or ring lay, "probably, in thus.- 

 vapours, \\lii.-h produce that pointed light, that ban 

 been observed lying in a manner along the ecliptic, 

 i that IUIN the HUH for coir 8 zodiacal li-ht 



iditional heritage of a lunar atmosphere 

 i passed, till th IUUHH of unreas. 



belief was dispelled by facts. His atmosphere of th<- 

 moon, his three volcanoes on its surface, and its fitness 

 as a home for lift', similar to what exists on the earth, 

 were long cherished <\ all to be un- 



learned Had the knowledge acquired from the total 



s of thf sun in 1700 a i. not been la i 



the shelf and format. -n. h. \\,,nM not have fallen 

 these mistakes. Unfortunately, though twenty-* 

 solar eclipses occur every eighteen years somewhere on 

 earth, no total eclipse has been seen from our island 

 since 1715. A few years passed away, and, in 1792, 

 Herschel came to the conclusion that we " have great 

 reason to surmise that the moon's atmosphere/' as well 

 as that of Saturn's fifth satellite, is " < 



the moon'* diameter. Its colour was quite tcAife, not pearl colour, nor 

 yellow, nor red, and the rays had a rivi.l and flickering appearance, 

 somewhat like that which a gas-light illumination might be supposed 

 to assume if formed into a similar ahape - (AUnm. Tmt. XT. p. 5). 



Halley's account of what he aaw in 1715 U as distinct and vivid as 

 that of Daily in 1848. See also Lalande, ii. 448. 



5 



