THE MOON. 489 



Mount Athos, whose shadow reaches Lemnos." 3 * The spots 

 cover about two -fifths of the whole disc. In a clear atmo- 

 sphere, and under favourable circumstances in the position of 

 the Moon, some of the spots are visible to the naked eye ; the 

 ridge of the Apennines, the dark walled plain Grimaldus, 

 the detached Mare Crisium, and Tycho? crowded round with 

 numerous mountain ridges and craters. It has been affirmed, 

 not without probability, that it was especially the aspect of 

 the Apennine chain, which induced the Greeks to consider 

 the spots on the Moon to be mountains, and at the same time 

 to associate with them the shadow of Mount Athos, which 

 in the solstices reached the Brazen Cow upon Lemnos. 

 Another very fantastic opinion was that of Agesinax, dis- 

 puted by Plutarch, according to which the Moon's disc was 

 supposed, like a mirror, to present to us again, catoptrically, 

 the configuration and outline of our continent, and the outer 

 sea (the Atlantic). A very similar opinion appears to have 

 been preserved to this time as a popular belief among the 

 people in Asia Minor. 88 



38 Plutarch, Moral ed. Wytten. torn. iv. pp. 786-789. The 

 shadow of Athos, which was seen by the traveller Pierre 

 Belon (Observations de singularites trouvees en Grece, Asie, 

 etc. 1554, liv. i. chap. 25), reached the brazen cow in the mar- 

 ket-town Myrine in Lemnos. 



37 Proofs of the visibility of these four objects, see in Beer 

 and Madler, der Mond, pp. 241, 338, 191, and 290. It is 

 scarcely necessary to mention that all which refers to the 

 topography of the Moon's surface is derived from the excel- 

 lent work of my two friends, of whom the second, William 

 Beer, was taken from us but too early. The beautiful 

 Vebersichtsblatt, which Madler published in 1837, three years 

 after the large map of the Moon, consisting of three sheets, is 

 to be recommended for the purpose of more easily becoming 

 acquainted with the bearings. 



38 Plut. De facie in orbe Lunce, pp. 726-729, Wytten. This 



