THE MOON. 67 



the Moon was a living world with volcanoes in 

 active eruption, surrounded by an atmosphere, 

 and inhabited by beings like ourselves. Unfor- 

 tunately, Schroter was not good at making 

 drawings of what he saw ; nevertheless, he 

 accomplished a vast amount of work. In the 

 little observatory at Lilienthal the foundations 

 were laid of the comparative study of the surface 

 of the Moon. 



But these observations were destined to be 

 rudely interrupted. In 1810 Hanover was occu- 

 pied by the invading troops of Napoleon, and 

 Schroter lost his appointment as Chief Magistrate 

 of Lilienthal, and also his income. But there 

 was worse to follow. On April 20, 1813, three 

 years after, the French, under Vandamme, with 

 that cruelty which seems to belong to warfare, 

 occupied Lilienthal, and set fire to the little 

 village. A few days later the French soldiers 

 entered the observatory and burned it to the 

 ground. All Schroter's precious observations, 

 accumulated after thirty-four years' labour, were 

 destroyed with a few exceptions, the observa- 

 tions on Mars narrowly escaping the conflagra- 

 tion. Unable to forget the destruction of his 

 observatory, and without the means to repair 

 the loss, he lived only three years after the 

 disaster. He died on August 29, 1816, "leaving 



