NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION. 37 



the cause of the bright spots of the moon, while the 

 want of them is what distinguishes the duller portions, 

 usually but erroneously called seas. In some parts, 

 bright volcanic matter, besides covering one largo patch, 

 radiates out in long streams, which appear studded with 

 subordinate foci of the same kind of energy. Other 

 objects of a most remarkable character are ring-moun- 

 tains, mounts like those of the craters of earthly vol- 

 canoes, surrounded immediately by vast and jorofound 

 circular pits, hollowed under the general surface, these 

 again being surrounded by a circular wall of mountain, 

 rising far above the central one, and in the inside of 

 which are terraces about the same height as the inner 

 eminence. The well-known bright spot in the south-east 

 quarter, called by astronomers Tycho, and which can be 

 readily distinguished by the naked eye, is one of these 

 ring-mountains. There is one of 200 miles in diameter, 

 with a pit 22,000 feet deep; that is, twice the height of 

 ^tna. It is remarkable, that the maps given by 

 Humboldt of a volcanic district in South America, 

 and one illustrative of the formerly volcanic district of 

 Auvergne, in France, present features strikingly like 

 many parts of the moon's surface, as seen through a good 

 glass. 



These characteristics of the moon forbid the idea that 

 it can be at present a theatre of life like the earth, and 

 almost seem to declare that it never can become so. 

 But we must not rashly draw any such conclusions. 

 The moon may be only in an earlier stage of the pro- 

 gress through which the earth has already gone. The 

 elements which seem wanting may be only in combina- 

 tions different from those which exist here, and may yet 

 be developed as we here find them. Seas may yet fill 

 the profound hollows of the surface ; an atmosphere may 



