94 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS. 
THE MOON. 
Read before the Astronomical Section of the Hamilton Scien- 
tific Association. 
BY J. E. MAYBEE. 
Before entering on the main part of the subject, perhaps it 
may be as well to say something in general on the body we are 
to discuss to-night. 
What is the Moon ? is a question probably as old as the 
human race. Man, very early in the life of the race, as now in 
the life of the individual, propounds the question, ‘“ What is 
this?” and “ What is that?’ Then the young race or the 
young man begins to ask, “ Why is this” and “ Why is that,” 
and as no answer is forthcoming from without, an answer is 
evolved from man’s inner consciousness. Thus myths arise, 
explaining not only what things are, and how they have come 
to be what they are, but also why they are. 
By and bve the race grows wiser, or at any rate individuals 
do, and we come to see that human knowledge has its limits. 
We can arrive at some knowledge of the constitution of the 
material universe. We have also made great advances in un- 
derstanding the method of its building, but when we enquire, 
“Why are these things so?” nature turns to us a face as in- 
scrutable as the stony features of the Egyptian Sphynx. 
Science then knows the futility of reaching further than the 
What and How. “What is the Moon?” will serve my pur- 
pose to-night. To the “man on the street” the moon is only 
a luminous body, which appears and disappears at intervals 
marked on the almanac, and is useful for moonlight excursions 
and lovers’ promenades. The poet sees the moon beams bath- 
ing hill and dale, and his fancy pictures Selene, chaste and fair 
stooping down from heaven to kiss the young Endymion sleep- 
ing on the mountain top. To the man of science the Moon is 
a sphere of like material to the earth, some 2,160 miles in 
