214 THE BORDERLAND OF SCIENCE. 



NEWS FROM THE MOON. 



THE Earl of "Kosse, to whose father the world owes the 

 telescope which turns its giant eye skywards from its 

 underground home at Parsonstown, has recently pub- 

 lished, in the Bakerian lecture of the Royal Society, 

 the results of his successful efforts to measure the 

 moon's heat. It is not my purpose to consider 

 specially Lord Rosse's researches, which are indeed of 

 such a nature as to be little suited for these pages. 

 I propose rather to avail myself of the attention 

 just now directed to our satellite, in order to discuss 

 some of the most remarkable and interesting facts 

 which have been learned respecting the moon, and 

 especially those which are least likely to be familiar 

 to the general reader. But I cannot refrain from 

 touching on a strange though not unexpected result 

 which follows from Lord Eosse's researches. The cold, 

 pale moon, that 



Climbs the sky 

 So silently and with so wan a face, 



has been shown to be in reality so warm, that no 

 creature living on our earth could endure contact with 

 that heated surface. The middle of the disc of the 

 ' white full moon ' is hotter than boiling water. It has 

 thus been the fate of science yet once again to destroy 

 an illusion which had for ages suggested a favourite 

 poetical image. Poets will continue, indeed, to sing of 



the cold moon, 



Chaste as the icicle 



That's curded by the frost from purest snow, 

 And hangs on Dian's temple ; 



