LUNAR PHENOMENA. 401 



relation to the mountain systems and intervening areas CTfAPTEH 

 of the moon : — and these are of the more interest to the ^^^^^^'- 

 reader, as putting him in possession of evidence in rela- 

 tion to the similarity observable between terrestrial and 

 lunar phenomena, published considerably prior to the 

 recent demonstrations of Mr. Naysmith, which have been 

 alluded to above. " Taking," the Professor remarks, 

 " the lunar mountain formations in the order of their isolrxtcd. 

 simplicity, we discern, at the outset, a great number of v^^^=' 

 perfectly isolated peaks, or sugar-loaf mountains, uncon- 

 nected with any group or range whatsoever. In our own 

 globe, such peaks are not uncommon, as in Cantal, for 

 instance, or Teneriffe ; but those generally belong to 

 some large sphere of disturbance, and the nature of the 

 forces and operation that produced them can, however 

 dimly, still with some degree of certainty be conceived. 

 These singular formations in the moon, however, very 

 often present no analogy, in this respect, with the corres- 

 ponding phenomena of our planet. They rise suddenly 

 from the midst of unbroken flats, and at a great distance 

 from general disturbances. They seem to have shot 

 through the plain, in obedience to some sharp internal 

 force, as one would push a needle through a sheet of 

 paper ; and the plain has not been much more disturbed. 

 Perhaps the finest instance of this is Pico, a very bi'il- Pice. 

 liant rock, about half as high as the loftiest of our Alps, 

 which towers almost precipitously north of Plato. No 

 system whatever is connected with that remarkable peak ; 

 it is there a solitary, unaccompanied protrusion. Strange, 

 indeed, the internal energies resulting in such pheno- 

 mena ! We are accustomed to consider apparently iso- 

 lated outbursts on the earth, as isolated only in appear- 

 ance — as the fragments — the remnants of some large 

 and continuous system, whose parts have been abraded 

 and washed away ; but in the moon there are none of 

 those meteorological agencies that have broken and 

 changed the contour of our mountains. As we proceed, 

 however, greater apparent breaches of analogy will press 



