Sky Study 



919 



The lady in the moon. 



lighted side turned toward us, we 

 say the moon is in its quarter, 

 because all we can see is one- 

 half of one-half which is one- 

 quarter; and when the lighted 

 side is almost entirely turned 

 away from us we say it is 

 a crescent moon; and when 

 the lighted side is entirely 

 turned away from us we say there 

 is no moon, although it is always 

 there just the same. Thus, we 

 can understand that, although we 

 can never see the other side of the 

 moon, the sun shines on all sides of 

 it. Our earth, like the moon, 

 shines always by reflected light and 

 is almost four times as wide as 

 the moon. Think what a splendid moon our earth must seem to the 

 lady in the moon! When we see the old moon in the new moon's 

 arms, the dark outline of the moon within the bright crescent is visible 

 because of the earthshine reflected from it. Sometimes pupils con- 

 fuse this appearance of the moon with a partial eclipse ; but the former is the 

 new or old moon, which is one edge of the moon shining in the sunlight, the 

 remainder faintly illumined by earth light, while an eclipse must always 

 occur at the full of the moon when the earth passes between the sun and the 

 moon, hiding the latter in its shadow. 



It is approximately a month from one new moon to the next, since it 

 takes twenty-nine and one-half days for the moon to complete its cycle 

 around the earth and thus turn once around in the sunshine. Therefore, 

 each moon day is fourteen and three-quarter days long and the night is the 

 same length. The moon always rises in the east and sets in the west, follow- 

 ing pretty nearly the sun's summer path. The full moon rises at sunset and 

 sets at sunrise, but owing to the movement of the earth around the sun the 

 moon rises about fifty minutes later each evening ; however, this time varies 

 with the different phases of the moon and at different times of the year. 

 This difference in the time of rising is so shortened in August, that we have 

 several nights when the full moon lengthens the day ; and it is called the 

 "harvest moon," because in England it adds to the hours devoted to 

 harvesting the grain. 



A Visit to the Moon 



If we could be shot out from a Jules Verne cannon and make a visit to 

 the moon, it would be a strange experience. First, we should find on this 

 little world, which is only as thick through as the distance from Boston to 

 Salt Lake City, mountains rising from its surface more than thirty thousand 

 feet high, which is twice as high as Mt. Blanc and a thousand feet higher 

 than the tallest peak of the Himalayas ; and these moon mountains are so 

 steep that no one could climb them. Besides ranges of these tremendous 

 mountains, there are great craters or circular spaces enclosed with steep 

 rock walls many thousand feet high. Sometimes at the center of the crater 

 there is a peak lifting itself up thousands of feet, and sometimes the space 



