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'-oon Is not, and cannot be inhabited at all, nor any 

 secondary planet whatever. Then I doubt we shali 

 ncver prove that the primary are : and so the whole in- 

 genious hypothesis, of innumerable suns and worlds- 

 moving rodiid them, vanishes into air. 



It may not" be unacceptable to the reader, to see the 

 sum of his reasonings on this head, " One would 

 think that the moon which is so neav us, and may by a 

 telescope be so accurately observed^ should afford us 

 matter of more probable conjecture, than any of the re- 

 moter planets. But it is quite otherwise. Only this we 

 may venture to say, that all the attendants of Jupiter 

 and Saturn arc of the same nature with our moon, as 

 going round them, and being carried with them round 

 ihe sun, just as the moon is with' the earth. Therefore 

 whatever we may reasonably affirm or conjecture, with 

 regard to our moon, must be supposed with very little 

 alteration to belong to the satellites of Jupiter and 

 Saturn, 



" The surface of the moon is found, even when we 

 use the shortest telescopes, to be diversified with long 

 tracts of mountains, and again with broad vallies. For 

 in those parts opposite to the sun, you may see the sha- 

 dows of the mountains, and often the round vallies be- 

 tween them, with a hill or two rising out of them. But 

 I cannot find any thing like sea there, notwithstanding 

 what many affirm. For those vast countries which ap- 

 pear darker than the others, commonly taken for seas, 

 are discovered with a good long telescope, to be full of 

 little round cavities: the shadow of which, falling with- 

 in themselves, makes them appear of that colour. And 

 those largo champaigns/ if you look carefully upon them, 

 you will find, not to be always smooth and even. Now 

 neither of these things can agree to the sea. Therefore 

 it is far more probable, that those plains in her which 

 seem brighter than the other parts, consist of a whiter 

 sort of matter. Nor do I believe, that there are any ri- 

 vers; for Jf there were, they could never have escaped 



