196 Lunar Delineation. 



ease with, which adequate optical aid is now attainable. All of 

 these cannot be expected to bring to their task a full know- 

 ledge of the peculiarities of lunar delineation, a subject which 

 in fact has been hitherto little explained ; and to those less 

 skilled in such matters the following remarks may be of use. 



The time in lunar drawing is long gone by when " any- 

 thing would do," or when pictorial effect could be substituted 

 for painstaking accuracy. What is now wanted is nothing less 

 than fidelity in outline, and fulness in detail. For this pur- 

 pose, some artistic training is highly desirable. It is to be 

 regretted that a fair portion of skill in design is not required 

 of every person pretending to a liberal education ; the advan- 

 tages and the gratification arising from it would be found 

 matters of almost daily experience, and to the possessors of 

 telescopes it would be of especial value. Any one who has 

 been accustomed to sketch frequently from nature, and who 

 knows how wonderfully varying are the effects of light and 

 shade on the same object at different times of the day and 

 seasons of the year, and from even slightly varied points of 

 view, and how details, which under some circumstances are not 

 only perceptible but prominent, vanish under an altered relief 

 of the surface, will find little difficulty in making or inter- 

 preting drawings of our satellite. 



To others all this is less easy, but let them persevere ; 

 they will (or ought to) master the subject in the end, and with 

 much interest by the way. Success, however, can scarcely be 

 expected, unless due precautions are. attended to, and the 

 ordinary rules of drawing observed. Students should be con- 

 tent with advancing from simpler to more complex forms, and, 

 instead of filling in outlines with a number of unmeaning 

 scratches and careless shadows, endeavour first to master 

 thoroughly the nature of what they see, and then to give to 

 every stroke and shading its due significance in representing 

 it. Such drawings alone can be really satisfactory to the 

 designer, or worthy of preservation. 



It is of consequence that too large an area (however full of 

 interest) should not be attempted at once. Much time would 

 be wasted in getting correctness of general position, which, after 

 all, would be best left to the micrometric or photographic 

 observer ; and those details which in the present state of sele- 

 nography are far more valuable, would be hurried over, ]tf not 

 in part omitted. And besides this, even if a long night during 

 the high reign of a winter's moon were selected for a large 

 design, the shadows near the terminator would be found, in 

 the course of a few hours, to have materially altered in length. 

 It is better on every account to content ourselves with well- 

 worked studies of circumscribed areas. Many such might be 



