NOTES AND QUEKIES. 
113 
the volume of the moon is only about ^'-gth, its surface is nearly -\t\i that 
of the earth. 
This cooling of the mass of the moon must, according to all analogy, 
have been attended with contraction, which can scarcely be conceived as 
occurring without the development of a cavernous structure in the in- 
terior. Much of this cavernous structure would doubtless communicate 
by means of fissures with the surface, and thus there would be provided 
an internal receptacle for the ocean, from the depths of which even the 
burning sun of the long lunar day would be totally unable to dislodge 
more than traces of aqueous vapour. A globe of wax was exhibited which 
had been cast under water ; it was highly cellular, and the water had been 
forced into the hollow spaces, completely filling them. Assuming the 
solid mass of the moon to contract on cooling at the same rate as granite, 
its refrigeration through only 180° F. would create cellular space equal 
to nearly 14^ millions of cubic miles, which would be more than sufiicient 
to engulf the whole of the lunar ocean, supposing it to bear the same 
proportion to the mass of the moon as our own ocean bears to that of the 
eartli. 
If such be the present condition of the moon, we can scarcely avoid the 
conclusion that a liquid ocean can only exist upon the surface of a planet 
80 long as the latter retains a liigh internal temperature. The moon then 
becomes to us a prophetic picture of the ultimate fate which awaits our 
earth, when, deprived of an external ocean and of all but an annual rota- 
tion upon its axis,* it shall revolve round the sun an arid and lifeless 
wilderness, — one hemisphere exposed to the perpetual glare of a cloudless 
sun, the other shrouded in eternal night. 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
Geology of Shabpness. — The following passages, from a paper by Mr. 
John Jones, of Gloucester, read before the Cotteswold Club, are inter- 
esting : — " The district to which we shall chiefly direct attention at present 
is that which lies between Sharpness Point and the Hock Crib, at Fre- 
therne (the ' Scearp-Nesse,' ' Acute Promontory,' and the ' Hock Crib,' or 
* curved lying-place '), comprising the ' New Ground?,' so called from 
their having been formed and reclaimed from the Severn at a very recent 
period. . . . 
" Crossing the wooden bridge, over the sluice which allows the waste 
waters of the canal to escape, we approach the place at which the ferry- 
boat from Pyrton, on the opposite side, lands its passengers ; the names of 
both being probably derived from the same Anglo-Saxon elements of Per- 
tun, ' the dwelling on the pier,' and evidencing the antiquity of the ferry, 
the rights pertaining to which are still strictly enforced by the lessee. An 
interesting chapter in practical geology may be read by the initiated from 
this spot. 
* Mayer has recently proved that the action of the tides tends to arrest the motion 
of the earth upon its axis. And although it has been proved that since the time of 
Hipparchus the length of the terrestrial day has not increased by the oue-huudredth 
part of a second, yet this fact obviously leaves untouched the conclusion to which Mayer's 
reasoning leads. 
TOL. VII. Q 
