280 LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE. 



America, and Cook New Holland, our lunar neighbor 

 knew most correctly the form and the outlines of the new 

 continents. There was no New World for him, and 

 there is none left. He could tell us the secrets of the 

 interior of Africa, and reveal to us the fearful mysteries 

 of the polar seas. But how he on his side must marvel 

 at our vast fields of snow, our volcanoes and tropical 

 storms and tempests he who knows neither fire, nor 

 snow, nor clouds! What strange fables he may have 

 invented to explain the shadows of our clouds as they 

 chase each other over sea and land, and hide from him 

 in an instant the sunlit landscape ! And stranger still, 

 on the side of the moon which is turned from the earth, 

 he knows nothing at all about us, unless news reach him 

 from the happier side. Or he may undertake the great 

 event in his life a long and painful journey to the 

 bright half of his globe, to stare at the wondrously bril- 

 liant earth-star, with its unread mysteries and marvellous 

 changes of flitting lights and shadows. Who knows what 

 earnest prayers may rise from the moon also, full of thanks 

 for the floods of light and heat we pour upon them, 

 or of ardent wishes that their souls might hereafter be 

 allowed to dwell in the bright homes of the beauteous 

 earth-star ? 



Only in one point has the dark side of the moon a 

 rare advantage. With its dark, unbroken night, a true 

 and literal "fortnight," it is the observatory of the moon, 

 and the best in the whole planetary system. There no 

 light from the earth, no twilight, hinders the most deli- 



