480 COSMOS. 



The ash-grey light with which a part of the Moon's disc 

 shines when, some days before or after the new Moon, she 

 presents only a narrow crescent, illuminated by the Sun, is 

 earth-light in the Moon, "the reflection of a reflection." 

 The less the Moon appears illuminated for the Earth, so much 

 the more is the Earth luminous for the Moon. But our 

 planet shines upon the Moon with an intensity 13^ times 

 greater than the Moon upon the Earth; and this light is 

 sufficiently bright to become again perceptible to us by a 

 second reflection. By means of the telescope, mountain-peaks 

 are distinguished in the ash-grey light of the larger spots 

 and isolated brightly-shining points; even when the disc is 

 already more than half illuminated.* These phenomena 

 become particularly striking between the tropics and upon 

 the high mountain-plains of Quito and Mexico. Since the 

 time of Lambert and Schroter the opinion has become pre- 

 valent that the extremely variable intensity of the ash- grey 



Western nations supposed they discerned a face, represent, 

 according to the Indian notion, a roebuck or a hare ; thence 

 the Sanscrit name of the Moon (mrigadhara), roebuck-bearer, 

 or (' sa sabhrit) , hare-bearer. (Schutz, Five Hymns of tlte 

 Bhatti-Kdvya, 1837, p. 19-23.) Among the Greeks it was 

 complained " that the sunlight reflected from the Moon 

 should lose all heat, so that only feeble remains of it were 

 transmitted by her." (Plutarch, in the dialogue " De facia 

 qua in orbe Luna apparet, Moralia, ed. Wyttenbach, torn. iv. 

 Oxon. 1797, p. 793). In Macrobius (Comm. in Somnium 

 Slip. i. 19, ed. Lud. Janus, 1848, p. 105) it is said: "Luna 

 speculi instar lumen quoillustratur.. ....rursusemittit, nulhmi 



tamen ad nos preferentem sensum caloris : quia lucis radius, 

 cum ad nos de origins sua, id est de Sole, pervenit, naturam 

 secum ignis de xjuo nascitur devehit ; cum vero in LunaB 

 corpus infunditur et inde resplendet, solam refundit claritatem, 

 non calorem." The same in Macrobius, Saturnal. lib. vii. 

 cap. 16. ed. Bipont. torn. ii. p. 277. 

 Madler, Astron. 112. 



