A TRIP TO THE MOON. 277 



discoverers and sanguine optimists, we are compelled to 

 deny the existence of either water or air, such as we 

 have them on earth, in our satellite. We know the pres- 

 ence of air by the fact that all air breaks and weakens 

 rays of light, which pass through it. The atmosphere of 

 the moon shows no such effects. Her landscapes appear 

 as clear and distinct on the margin as in the centre of 

 the orb, and when stars pass over the latter, they show 

 no diminution of light at the time of their entrance into 

 the luminous circle, no increase of light when they leave 

 it again. The evaporation of water also, would be 

 betrayed by the same breaking of rays, if that element 

 were mixed up with the air, as it is in our own atmos- 

 phere, or if it covered any part of the moon's surface. 

 Unwilling as we are to banish her inhabitants exclusively 

 to that side of the moon, which human eye has never 

 yet beheld, because it is constantly turned away from 

 the earth, and there, at fancy's bid to revel in a paradise 

 with purling brooks and balmy zephyrs, nothing is left 

 but to assume that the air is too thin and the water too 

 ethereal to be perceived by the instruments now at our 

 command. The careful calculations of the great astron- 

 omer Bessel resulted in the bare possibility of an atmos- 

 phere, a thousand times thinner than our own, showing 

 conclusively how little we can expect to find life on the 

 moon to resemble in any way life on earth. The in- 

 habitants of that world, if there be any, must have other 

 bodies than ours, other blood must run through their 

 veins, and other lungs breathe their air we could never 

 live in such a world. 



