368 SPECIAL RESULTS IN THE URANOLOGICAL 



of tides and currents. (The absence of seas in the Moon 

 forbids the supposition of tides raised by the Sun and 

 Earth.) The most that we can suppose would be small de- 

 posits of detritus resulting from friction. In our moun- 

 tain-chains upheaved over fissures, we are also gradually 

 beginning to recognise here and there partial groupings of 

 elevations, forming, as it were, egg-shaped basins. How 

 entirely different would the Earth's surface appear to us, if 

 we saw it stripped of the sedimentary and tertiary forma- 

 tions, and of all alluvial deposits ! 



The Moon, far more than all the other planetary bodies, 

 diversifies and enlivens the aspect of the firmament in every 

 zone by its varying phases and more rapid change of posi- 

 tion relatively to the fixed stars ; while man, and even the 

 beasts of the forest ( 594 ) (especially in the primeval forests 

 of the torrid zone) ,rejoice in its mild lustre. By the attracting 

 force which it exerts in conjunction with the Sun it commu- 

 nicates motion to our seas, and, by the periodical raising of 

 their surfaces and the eroding action of the tides, gradually 

 modifies the outlines of our coasts, impedes or favours man's 

 labours, and furnishes the greater part of the materials of 

 which sandstones and conglomerates are composed, these last 

 being again covered in their turn by the loose rounded particles 

 which form alluvium ( 595 ). Thus the Moon, as one of the 

 " sources of movement" on the terrestrial surface, influences 

 continually the geognostic features of our planet. 



The incontestible action ( 596 ) of our satellite on atmo- 

 spheric pressure, aqueous precipitations, and the dispersion 

 of clouds, will be treated of in the latter and purely telluric 

 portion of the Cosmos. 



