M O O 
MOOGPOU'R, a town of Hindooftan, in Guzerat: 
tliirty-one miles eaft-north-eaft of Janagur. 
MOO'GRY, a town of Hindooftan, in tlie country of 
Vifiapoiir : thirty-one miles weft of Poonah. 
MOOJA'ERT, or Mooyaert. See Moyard. 
MOOKANOO'R, a town of Hindooftan, in Baramaul: 
eighteen miles fouth-fouth-weft of Darempoory. 
MOO'KER, a town of Cabulillan: forty miles of 
Ghizni. 
MOO'KER, a town of Hindooftan, in Madura : forty 
miles eaft of Coilpetta. 
MCO'KI, a feaport-town of Japan, in a bay on the 
fouth-eaft coaft of the ifland of Niphon: eighty miles 
fouth-eaft of Jedo. Lat. 35. 30. N. Ion. 4.0. 40. E. 
MOO'LA, a town of Hindooftan, in Vifiapoiir: ten 
miles eaft of Poonah. 
MOOLEUWER'TS, a rock in the eaft entrance of the 
Straits of Sunda. Lat. 5. 12.S. Ion. 107. E. 
MOOLIL'LY, a town Hindooftan, in Myfore : twenty- 
eight miles weft-north-weft of Allumbaddy. 
MOON,/ Gr. mena, Goth, mona, Sax. maane, Dan. 
mon, Ger. mam, Dut. See the etymology of Month.] 
The changing luminary of thfe night, called by poets 
Cynthia, Phoebe, Luna, and Diana.—Diana hath her 
name from moiftnels, which is the property of the moon, 
being by nature cold and moift, and is feigned to be a 
goddefs huntrefs. Peacham. 
Beneath the mighty ocean’s wealthy caves, 
Beneath the eternal fountain of all waves. 
Where their vaft court the mother waters keep, 
-And undifturb'd by moons in fiience lleep. Cowley. 
Among the ancients, the moon was an object of prime 
regard. By the Hebrews fhe was more regarded than the 
fun, and they were more inclined to worlhip her as a deity. 
The new moons, or firft days of every month, were kept 
as feftivals among them, which were celebrated with 
found of trumpets, entertainments, and facrifice. See 
iSlumb. xviii. 11. x. 16. 1 Sam. xx. 5-18. People were not 
obliged on thefe days to reft. The feafts of new moons 
were a miniature reprefentation of the feaft of trumpets, 
which was held on the firft of the month Tifri, the be¬ 
ginning of the civil year. The Jews, not being acquaint¬ 
ed with the phyfical caufe of eclipfes, looked upon them, 
whether of fun or moon, as fignt of the divine difpleafure. 
The Grecians looked upon the moon as favourable to 
marriage ; and the full moons, or the times of conjunction 
of fun and moon, were held the moll lucky feafons for 
celebrating marriages ; becaufe they imagined the moon 
to have great influence over generation. The full moon 
was held favourable for any undertakings by the Spartans; 
and no motive could induce them to enter .upon an ex¬ 
pedition, march an army, or attack an enemy, till the 
full of the moon. The moon, or Luna, was l'uppofed 
both by Greeks and Romans to preflde over child-birth. 
The patricians at Rome wore a crefcent on their fltoes, to 
diftinguilh them from the other orders of men. This 
crefcent was called lunula. Some fay it was of ivory, 
others that it was worked upon the flioe, and others that 
it was only a particular kind of fibula, or buckle. 
For the aftronomical phenomena connected with the 
moon, fee the article Astronomy, vol. ii. p. 375 & feq. 
We may juft obferve, that,- though nothing like a true 
fyftem of aftronomy was known to the ancients, there are, 
neverthelefs, to be found in their writings many brilliant 
conceptions, feveral fortunate conjectures, and gleams of 
the light which was afterwards to t be fo generally diffufed. 
Anaxagoras and Empedocles, for example, taught that 
the moon ftiines by light borrowed from the fun, and 
were led to that opinion, not only from the phafes of the 
moon, but from its light being weak, and unaccompanied 
by heat. That it was a habitable body, like the earth, 
appears to be a doCtrine as old as Orpheus; fome lines, 
alcribed to that poet, reprefenting the moon as an earth ; 
with mountains and cities on its furface. Democritus 
l'uppofed the fpots on the face of the moon to arile from 
Vol. XV. No. 1081. 
Ill O O 753 
the inequalities of the furface, and from the fhadows of 
the more elevated parts projected on the plains. Every 
one knows how conformable this is to the difeoveries 
made by the telefcope. Plutarch confiders the velocity 
of the moon’s motion as the caufe which prevents that 
body from falling to the earth, juft as the motion of a 
ftone in a fling prevents it from falling to the ground. 
The comparifon is, in a certain degree, juft, and clearly 
implies the notion of centrifugal force ; and gravity may 
alfo be confidered as pointed at for the caufe which gi ves 
the moon a tendency to the earth. Here, therefore, a 
foundation was laid for the true philofophy of the celeftial 
motions ; but it was laid without eft'eCt. It was merely the 
conjecture of an ingenious mind, wandering through the 
regions of pofiibility, guided by no evidence, and having 
no principle which could give liability to its opinions. 
See Mr. Profelfor Playfair’s Dilfertation prefixed to the 
2d vol. of the'Ency. Brit. Supp. 
Mr. Horne Tooke oblerves, that, “ in many of the 
Afiatic languages, and in all the Northern languages of 
this part of the globe, and particularly in our mother- 
language, the Anglo-Saxon, (from which Sun and Moon 
are immediately derived to us,) Sun is feminine, and 
Moon is mafeuline ; and fo feminine is the Sun, “ that 
fair hot wench in flame-coloured taffata,” (ift Part of 
Henry IV.) that our Northern mythology makes her the 
wife of Tuifco. Mr. Tooke lays, that our Englifh poets, 
Shalcefpeare, Milton, See. reverted the genders of the Sun 
and Moon, “ by a familiar profopopeia, becaufe, from 
their claflical reading they adopted the Southern, not the 
Northern, Mythology, and followed the pattern of their 
Greek and Roman mailers.” But, if there be room to 
fuppofe that an error has been committed, as refpeCls the 
gender of the idol of the Sun, there feeins ftill greater caufe 
to confider that a fimilar millake has occurred in the ideal 
fex of the Moon : for, “ in the Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, 
German, Dutch, Danifli, and Swedifh, languages, all of 
which it is contended were originally from the lame root, 
it is incontrovertible that Sun is feminine, and Moon, 
mafeuline,” in the Northern mythology ; although they 
are of reputed contrary genders in that of the South. By 
the former, the Sun is made the wife of Tuifco, the idol 
that gave name to Tuefday; by the latter, the Sun is 
made the hujband of the Moon, and as fuch, received, in 
the fovereignty of Antoninus, the rich marriage-portion 
of his fpoufe worlhipped by the Africans as Ajlarte, 
when a general feltival was held in honour of the union, 
at Rome, and throughout the empire. Clavis Calandaria, 
vol. i. p. iia. 
Moon, figuratively a month : 
Since thefe arms of mine had feven years pith, 
Till now fome nine moons wafted, they have us’d 
Their deareft aftion in the tented field. Shuliejpeare. 
The honey-moon, for the firft month after marriage, is. 
yet a common expreffion : this ancient mode of typifying 
that happy period, was brought into ufage by our Saxon 
anceftors, who, previoufly to their fettling in this coun¬ 
try, had adopted that phrafe from a cuftom long in ufe 
among the northern nations, of drinking a favourite be¬ 
verage compoled of honey for thirty days after every wed¬ 
ding. Clavis Calendaria. 
MOON (Mountains of), mountains in the interior 
parts of Africa, which extend from Negroland, through 
Abyffinia, to the Indian Sea. 
MOO'N-BE AM, / Ray of lunar light.—On the water 
the moon-beams played, and made it appear like floating 
quickfilver. Dry den on Dram. PoeJ'y. 
MOO'N-BLIND, adj. Dim-fighted; purblind. Scott. 
MOO'N-CALF, / A monfter ; afalfe conception ; fup- 
pofed perhaps anciently to be produced'by the influence 
of the moon.—How earned thou to be the fiege of this 
moon-calf ? ShalieJ'pcare. —A dolt 5 a ftupid fellow : 
The potion works not on the part defign’d, 
But turns his brain, and ftupifies his mind ; 
The fotted. moon-calf gapes. Dryden's Juvenal. 
9 F MOQ'N- 
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