MOONLIGHT. 517 



nomena, — forces capable of "rolling the heavens and earth together as a 

 great scroll," and ' melting them in fervent heat," — and that such forces 

 have been exerted and may be exerted again, I naay safely assure my 

 friends that they are in no immediate danger from this cause, and that this 

 generation will " pass away before these things shall be." 



The cause of attraction is not known, but may yet be found in magnet- 

 ism. The motions of the heavenly bodies, as well as attraction, may possi- 

 bly be found in the two-fold forces of electricity and its kindred mj'stery, 

 magnetism. But I cannot pursue this branch of the subject now without 

 the risk of wearying your patience, and shall have to defer it to some 

 future occasion when time and opportunity offers. 



MOONLIGHT.* 

 BY RICHARD A. PROCTOR, B. A. 



The light of the moon and the changes of the moon were probably the 

 first phenomena which led men to study the motions of the heavenly bodies. 

 In our times, when most men live where artificial illumination is used at 

 night, we can scarcely appreciate the full value of moonlight to men who 

 cannot obtain artificial light. Especially must moonlight have been valua- 

 ble to the class of men among whom, according to all traditions, the first 

 astronomers appeared. The tiller of the soil might fare tolerably well 

 without artificial light, though even he — as indeed the familiar designation 

 of the harvest moon shows us — finds especial value, sometimes, in moon- 

 light. But to the shepherd moonlight and its changes must have been of 

 extreme importance as he watched his flocks and herds by night. We can 

 understand how carefully he would note the change from the new moon to 

 the time when, throughout the whole night, or at least of the darkest hours, 

 the full moon illuminated the hills and valleys over which his watch ex- 

 tended, and thence to the time when t!\e sickle of the fast-waning moon 

 shone but a short time before the rising of the sun. To him. naturally, the 

 lunar month, and its subdivision, the week, would be the chief measure of 

 time. He would observe — or rather he could not help observing — the 

 passage of the moon around the zodiacal band, some twenty moon breadths 

 wide, which is the lunar roadway among the stars. These would be the 

 first purely astronomical observations made by man ; so that we learn with- 

 out surprise, that before the pre&eat division of the zodiac was adopted, the 

 old Chaldean astronomers {as well as the Indian, Persian, Egyptian and 

 Chinese astronomers, who still follow the practice), divided the zodiac into 

 28 lunar mansions, each mansion corresponding nearly to one day's motion 

 of the moon among the stars. 



It is easy to understand how the first rough observations of moonlight 



" * The Day of Best." 



