THE MOON AND LUNAR PHENOMENA. 87 



from observations made at Munich, Stuttgard, Augsburg, and Vienna, extending through 

 an interval of twenty-eight years. In addition to affecting the terrestrial atmosphere, it 

 has been from time immemorial an almost universal opinion, that lunar influence operates 

 upon organic life, and is unpropitious to it. The Roman poet speaks of " the moon's 

 doubtful and malignant light : " 



" incertam Lunam sub luce maligna." 



Throughout the East the opinion is common, that the moonbeams are deleterious, 

 injuring the sight, and defacing the countenances of persons who sleep exposed to them. 

 The light of the moon, Plutarch supposed in his day to be an active agent in putrefying 

 animal substances ; and the fishermen of Sicily now cover . the fish at night exposed on 

 the sea-shore to dry, alleging that the moonbeams would otherwise putrefy them. It is 

 supposed, also, that tender plants are often cut off in April and May by the moonlight. 

 The facts observed in these cases are no doubt true, but referable to another cause than 

 the one stated. Animal substances putrefy, plants are cut off. and sight is injured, by 

 open-air exposure on a moonlight night, yet not because of that light, but of the removal 

 of the clouds, the fine clear sky, which favours the radiation of heat, by which exposed 

 bodies become colder than the surrounding air, and hence the mischiefs narrated. We 

 cannot attribute to the moonlight any potential effect upon terrestrial substances, when 

 it has been ascertained that chloride of silver, the colour of which suffers the greatest 

 and most rapid change by an exposure to light, is not at all affected by the lunar beams 

 condensed in the focus of a powerful burning-glass. Besides these supposed instances of 

 lunar action, cases of disease, such as epilepsy and insanity, were believed to be largely 

 influenced by the moon by the two great physicians of antiquity Hippocrates and 

 Galen ; and many of the moderns have countenanced the opinion ; and hence the word 

 lunacy is applied to mental distempers. It is undoubtedly true that health and sickness 

 materially depend upon the state of the atmosphere, and therefore, by affecting the atmo- 

 sphere of the earth, the moon may indirectly influence the organism of its inhabitants. 

 But to suppose disorders of the brain to be exasperated by lunar changes, as an effect 

 of those changes, may be safely dismissed as a vulgar conceit. Even were it incontestably 

 established that such effects occur at such intervals, a simple coincidence would be proved, 

 and the question of connection left untouched. There is some reason to suppose that 

 exasperations of insanity are coincident with the full moon, owing to the more distinct 

 lights and shadows of the night powerfully affecting the imagination. 



With reference to one province of the satellite, that of giving light to the earth, there 

 can be no difference of opinion as to its utility, inferior as is the borrowed lunar to the 

 direct solar illumination. Owing to the unfailing prosecution of her orbital route from 

 west to east about 13 daily, the moon rises at a mean rate 50 minutes later every day. 

 This is the general rule. But there is a remarkable deviation from it in our latitude, 

 when the moon's path lies in Pisces and Aries. This part of the ecliptic makes but a 

 small angle with the horizon of those places that have considerable latitude, and, taking 

 that of our own country as an example, as much of Pisces and Aries rises in two hours 

 as the moon requires six days to travel through. The consequence is, that she differs 

 but two hours in the time of her rising for six days together, or rises each day about 

 20 minutes later than the one preceding. This takes place in our autumnal months, 

 September and October ; and hence we have the harvest and the hunter's moon. It is 

 true that the phenomenon of the moon's rising for a week together so nearly at the same 

 period must occur every time she is in Pisces and Aries, or once a month. But she 

 only rises as a full moon, with so little variation, about the autumnal equinox ; and 

 it is her appearance that arrests attention and renders the event remarkable. The 

 husbandman prizes it as an important benefaction, lengthening out the day during 



