98 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS. 
length of night upon the Moon, but I think I am safe in saying 
such temperatures would be fatal to highlv organized animal 
life, even leaving out of account the insufficiency of air and the 
impossibility of having water in the liquid condition. It may 
be urged that we cannot say that life must always and every- 
where exist in the manner and under the conditions which ob- 
tain on earth. 
To this I would say that life here is always manifested as a 
function of protoplasm, that peculiar combination of carbon, 
nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen. Now, in all our experience 
of the properties of matter we do not know of any chemical ele- 
ment or chemical combination which possesses identical pro- 
perties with any other element or combination. It therefore 
seems improbable that any other combination of elements is pos- 
sible, as things are constituted, which will possess the property 
of life. 
I think, then, we are justified in assuming that life, wher- 
ever existent, will be found dependent on protoplasm, and 
therefore, on heat, moisture and other conditions, which obtain 
on earth. This being so, highly organized animal life must 
be absent from the Moon. It would also seem improbable that 
the higher forms of vegetable life could exist there. They 
also need heat. In our own Arctic regions trees mostly cease 
when the mean average temperature for January is —30 deg., 
and for July +50 deg. F. They seldom, indeed, reach as far 
north as the Arctic circle. Plants do indeed grow very far to 
the north, though the number of species is wofully diminished, 
showing clearly that the limit is nearly reached, and that in a 
jatitude where the mean temperature perhaps does not rise above 
—37 deg. F. for the winter months, and + 33 degrees F. for 
the summer months. Compare these temperatures with —200' 
deg. C. and o deg. C. on the Moon (—328 degrees and —32 
degrees F.) 
It is most important to note that while in low latitudes on 
earth the phanerogams or seed bearing plants vastly predomi- 
nate over the cryptogams; in the Arctic regions the cryptogams 
take the lead in the proportion of 1687 to 762. This shows 
