14' JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



is SO exuberant that it pours over as from an over-flowing cup 

 and the slop of life is all around us. It is from this double 

 consideration, the insignificance of this earth in creation, and the 

 abundance the crush of life on its surface, that we rise to the 

 first principles on which the proof of the universal habitation 

 of the heavenly bodies must be fixed. The old idea of plurality 

 of life possessing worlds has risen to a philosophic doctrine. 

 Investigation looks for the easiest and the nearest, and so we 

 turn to the moon. But nothing encourages us here. A dead 

 ruined wreck it seems floating like some abandoned hulk in the 

 vast Atlantic of space, a derelict in the universe, a burnt-out 

 cinder, neither air nor water nor cloud (on the side next us at 

 least), and so not capable of aniinal life — unless, indeed, the men 

 and women on the moon are so constituted that they can live 

 without air or water — but for all this obedient to the laws of her 

 creation. And because she was so obedient a great discovery 

 was made. It was discovered on the occasion of a certain 

 eclipse that the moon's shadow was no less than 3 seconds 

 behind time in touching the sun's disk. What connection this 

 last should have with the inhabitability of the moon is not at 

 first apparent, but it clears out of the way all the objections 

 that have ever been started against the capability of the moon 

 supporting- animal life at its surface. A gap of 3 seconds 

 between observation and calculation could not rest without 

 explanation. A fast express train on an hour's run of 40 miles 

 could be granted at least 2 or 3 minutes grace, but not even 3 

 seconds could be allowed the moon on a 37 days' run of nearh' 

 a million miles. 



All the astronomers of the world were soon busy seeking 

 the explanation. After an elaborate analj^sis a German astron- 

 omer, Professor Hansen, found that the moon was not balanced 

 accurately, that the side nearest us and which is always the 

 same side was lighter than the other, the centre of gravity was 

 not the centre of the figure, but 35 miles beyond that and far- 

 ther from us. Now air and v\^ater being free fluids will always 

 flow to the lowest level and therefore they would run round to 

 the other side of the moon and there conafreo'ate — this farther 



