278 LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE. 



And what a curious almanac these good people in the 

 moon would have ! There, days are as long as years, and 

 day and year are equal to our months: twenty-nine days, 

 twelve hours, and forty-five minutes. The seasons differ but 

 very little from each other. On the equator there reigns 

 eternal summer, for the sun is ever in the zenith; the 

 poles are buried in eternal winter. The days are of 

 equal length throughout the year; all days equally light, 

 all nights equally dark. The absence of an atmosphere 

 deprives the moon of the sweet charms of a twilight, and 

 glaring day would follow gloomy night with the rapidity 

 of lightning, if the slow rising and setting of the sun 

 did not slightly break the suddenness of the transition. 

 Human eyes, however, could not bear the fierce contrasts 

 of light and shadow ; they would long in vain for the 

 soft intervals between the two extremes, the other col- 

 ors, which beautify our world with their joyous variety, 

 and soft harmony. The sky is there not blue, but even 

 in daytime black, and by the side of the dazzling sun the 

 stars claim their place and shed their light in the heavens. 

 Near the poles the mountain tops shine in unbroken 

 splendor year after year, but the valleys know neither 

 day nor night, for they are ever but scantily lighted by 

 the faint glimmer reflected from the walls that surround 

 them. 



That side of the moon which is turned away from 

 us, has a night of nearly fifteen days ; the stars only, and 

 planets, shine on its ever dark sky. The side we see, 

 on the contrary, knows no night; the earth lights it up 

 with never ceasing earth-shine, a light fourteen times 



