74 IN STARRY REALMS. 



when the earth raised tides on the moon. But small 

 though our satellite may be, yet the tides raised on the 

 earth have incessantly tended to wear down the speed of 

 our globe and reduce it to conformity with the law that 

 the two bodies shall bear the same face towards each 

 other. At present the earth turns round twenty-seven 

 times while the moon goes round once, so the tides have 

 still a gigantic task to accomplish. With unflagging 

 energy, however, they are incessantly engaged at the work, 

 and they are constantly tending to bring down the speed 

 of the earth ; constantly tending towards that ultimate 

 condition of things in which the earth and moon are des- 

 tined to revolve in a period of fourteen hundred hours as 

 if they were connected with invisible bonds. 



If such a state of things as this were established then 

 it is plain that tides would no longer ebb and flow, 

 that is, at least, if we exclude from our consideration 

 the intervention of any other body. High tides must 

 prevail at some parts of the earth, and low tides at 

 other parts, but the position of these tides will remain 

 fixed. Where it is high tide it will always be high 

 tide; where it is low tide it will always be low tide. 

 When this state of things is reached, the moon will be 

 constantly visible in the same part of the sky from one 

 half of our globe, while the other half of our globe will 

 never be turned towards the moon. In fact, the 

 moon would always appear to us in a fixed position as 

 the earth would always appear to be if viewed by an 

 observer stationed on the moon. If there were any Luna- 

 rians whose residence was confined to the opposite side 

 of the moon, they could never see this earth at all, while 



