STANCES TO MAN. interior of the cylinder. It is for this purpose that | USES OF SOME OF THE INORGANIC SUBholes are left in the substance of the cylinder, that the vacuum within may act upon the pulp which is spread on the wire-cloth on the outside. All these after-contrivances, such as the vacuum, &c., are to facilitate the drying of the pulp. Directly after the film of pulp has been thus dried, it is then taken off by an endless band of felt which passes over another cylinder, and is pressed between two rollers, much in the same way as we described in Fourdrinier's method. The water which flows from the pulp through the wire-cloth, into the hollow of the first cylinder, is carried off by means of a pipe, which acts, as the axis round which the cylinder revolves; and as this water frequently contains a small quantity of pulp, arrangements are made for conveying that pulp back again into the vat. One of the great advantages of machine-made paper, is the large size which can be given to the sheets. A sheet of paper for a double number of the Times newspaper, if made by hand, would require a mould of most unwieldy dimensions, and would be in every respect difficult to work. Paper-hangings have been greatly reduced in price, by being made in one piece twelve yards long; whereas small sheets had to be pasted together, under the old system. Such are the modes now adopted for making paper. In some parts of the Continent, the rags are still reduced to a pulp in the original mode of stamping or beating. They have mortars cut in solid oak, the cavity being two or three feet in diameter, and a hole in the middle of the cavity being left to carry away the water. Large hammers with teeth act perpendicularly in these cavities, and cut the rags to small pieces. This rude method is, however, almost exploded at the present day. INTEMPERANCE. FRESH is fair beauty's cheek, and bright Yet may not brook the morning light, Yet soiled in nightly jar; It may not bear with ruffled crest The late carousal board. THAT another state of life there must be for every creature wherein there is the breath of life, he was verily persuaded. To that conclusion the whole tenour of his philosophy led him; and what he entertained as a philosophical opinion, acquired from a religious feeling something like the strength of faith. For if the whole of a brute animal's existence ended in this world, then it would follow that there are creatures born into it, for whom it had been better never to have been, than to endure the privations, pains, wrongs and cruelties inflicted upon them by human wickedness; and he would not, could not, dare not, believe, that any, even the meanest of God's creatures, has been created to undergo more of evil than of good, (where no power of choice was given,) much less to suffer unmingled evil, during its allotted term of existence. Yet this must be if there were no state for animals after death.-THE DOCTOR. IF, under the peculiar appointments for man, shelter has been rendered as imperious a necessity as clothing, if substances have been prepared for this purpose, which he has been gifted with ingenuity to apply, and if he has been further provided with intellect to effect this end in a progressively superior manner, which, if had not, he would have been judged less worthy of his Maker's regard than the beaver and the bee, we ought to believe that the means were created for him, even more than the wool of the sheep, since to all other animals they serve no purpose. It is an inconsiderate or a fanatical judgment, which thinks that a Being so great and so powerful could not have attended to such trifles, or which thinks Him insulted by such a supposition. pared to Himself, what is there worthy of his notice? He who cares for the minutest insect as for man, cannot have judged anything beneath IIis regard; and if He has provided for the wants of even the living atom which escapes the microscope, it is our duty to believe that He has neglected nothing which could concern our own, infinitely more numerous and complicated as they are, even to the production of a sandstone for building, a limestone for cement, and a slate for roofing. Com Is it that associations like these are deemed improper? Let the student of creation accustom himself to think otherwise, else will he fail to discover that the hand of God is in all His works, and learn to neglect Him. Or is it that such attentions are deemed mean, because our own pride, or negligence, or selfishness, prevents us from following those examples of beneficence which He gives us? His ways, indeed, are not as our ways; but were we to endeavour to make our conduct more like His, if only in this, human nature and human life would present far other aspects than they now do. Instead of charging with fanaticism or folly, what may appear vulgar or fanciful attempts to illustrate His goodness, let us rather labour to do as He has done, and equally careless of the ingratitude with which it is received, to persevere in beneficence. Little, indeed, it is that we can effect, but it were well that we even desired to do for each other what He has done from the beginning, and is continually doing for us, ever thoughtless and ever ungrateful. Are these superfluities, sources of pure pleasure, luxuries, provided for us in these appointments, as in all else? The latter term possesses a vulgar association with what is vicious or forbidden, as do even the former, in minds tinged with ascetitism. But he who would separate pleasures from uses, would require to think more deeply than is usual on such subjects; he who condemns luxury has never thought at all; and he, the acetic, forgets that the beneficence of God has not been limited to the mere supply of needful wants. It is not from him, at least, that reason or religion will take the character of the Universal Father. In granite, we find a stone so well calculated for durability, so beautiful and various, and so submissive to our tools, that it has been selected from the earliest periods of civilization, as the material for those works which record the power and knowledge of nations. Often, too, their architecture is the only portion of their history which has descended to us: and if it is important for us to know under what forms man has preceded us, what he has thought, known and done, what has been his political condition, what his astronomical knowledge, what his mechanical attainments, what his progress in the arts of taste, so intimately connected with his general mental cultivation, it is here that we must often seek this information, while thus, also, we often attain to know what his religion has been, under the strange forms which that has assumed. Can we then believe that even the luxury of architecture is unimportant in the eye of the Deity? And if thoughtlessness should condemn the immense, and apparently useless labours of ancient Egypt, so are they easily condemned, under the use of the ever-acceptable term tyranny, the ever-ready word of him who abuses all the power which he can command. Yet he who would eat must labour: it is the unvarying law, not of God alone, but of human society; the bond by which it is held together. The soil of Egypt was the possession of its singular government, and the labour of the people was the only manner in which they could demand or acquire a share of the produce: it was the only mode in which they ought to have possessed their portions. There is reason to believe that the soil had appropriated all the labour applicable to it; and commercial industry, as it then was, had probably done the same. An artificial invention to occupy labour, became, therefore, imperiously necessary; and through this was Egypt peopled, to an extent which seems to have been very great. The bearing of this fact on other cases, where, under a general law pervading all | creation, conditions of labour have been attached to possession, must be obvious: and though tyranny had been the immediate cause, even thus does the Deity often direct the wickedness of man to his own good ends. though possessed of the ingredients, and of the means of analyzing these natural compounds. Every one knows how difficult it has proved to rival the porcelains of China, and that the ancient pottery of Greece is hitherto inimitable. Indispensable as this property, and the arts derived from it, are to those countries which are deprived of stone, which, nevertheless, from this very cause, their alluvial nature, with their consequent fertility, havé been the earliest and most crowded seats of civilized man, so is it in those that the substances in question abound most, as the art of converting them into stone seems coeval with man himself. Still more remarkable may it be considered, that in the most ancient and noted of all inhabited lands, the clay deposited by its great river is convertible into brick by the mere power of the sun, without which peculiar appointment and command Nineveh and Babylon would scarcely have been; while these great cities occupy a space and a time far too important in the history of man, to permit us to doubt that they were ordained, they, and the very means of their erection and existence. On so apparently insignificant a property in an insignificant earth, the refuse of the mountains, the produce of apparent casualty, the deposit from a river breaking its seemingly appointed bounds, have been founded the greatest and the most powerful, as the most ancient of empires, producing all those extraordinary consequences, which, but for this, would never existed. Can the hand of the Creator be seen in this? Let the reader conclude for himself. On the variety of arts, the mass of industry, the production of wealth, the uncountable uses consequent on so apparently trivial a substance and simple a property, I need not dwell. Yet I must remark, that to the singular indestructibility of this artificial stone, a property possessed by scarcely any natural work, we owe, as we do to architecture, much histo Sandstone demands no particular remarks; but had the fissility of slate not been known, it would scarcely have been credited, especially by those who know that it does not occur in consequence of its stratified disposition. That rock was once a solid mass of clay, deposited horizontally, in slow succession, and afterwards indurated. It should have sepa-rical knowledge that would otherwise have irreparably rated into leaves, as the shales do, in the same direction in which it was deposited, if it was to split at all, and there is, therefore, no contingency in the present very different result. The law is a peculiar one; whether intended for the useful end others may judge: it is not, however, the exception which it has been called. Let no one ever perplex or suppress the truth, above all in questions of the present nature. The same law acts in other rocks, but nowhere to the production of so perfect an effect. The contrivances in the preparations for limestone are much more remarkable than even in the case of coal, and they are acting daily under our eyes, both for present and future purposes. And if animal life here contributes in more than one mode, thus are, ultimately, beneficent ends attained, through means involving a primary mass of beneficence which defies all means of estimate, in the granting of happiness with life to uncountable myriads of beings, through ages which we vainly attempt to conjecture. If it is now superfluous to speak of the uses of this rock in architecture, I may at least note, that they depend on a combination of chemical arrangements which we had no right to expect, and have not long discovered. It has been among the designs of the Creator, to confer on clay the property of being converted into stone by the aid of heat: while under a variety of appointments in the constitution of these earths, we possess all the uses derived from brick upwards to porcelain. If these varieties are such, that we could not have expected them, from the exceeding simplicity of the composition, so is it remarkable that we must depend on nature for the greater number of them, perished. Hence alone, nearly, is it that we can still THERE is something in beauty, whether it dwells in the hu- LONDON: JOHN WILLIAM PARKER, WEST STRAND. PUBLISHED IN WEEKLY NUMBERS, PRICE ONE PENNY, AND IN MONTHLY PARTS PRICE SIXPENCE. Sold by all Booksollers and Newsvenders in the Kingdom. THE EARTH. What if the Sun Be centre to the world, and other stars By his attractive virtue and their own Incited, dance about him various rounds? Their wandering course now high, now low, then hid, In six thou seest, and what if seventh to these MILTON'S Par. Lost, b. viii. We have now arrived at the third planet in the order of distance, the Earth, on which we dwell: that habitation which, though it may appear so vast-so mighty-to our gaze, is but a speck in the great scheme of the universe. Could we but travel into space, and view the solar system as a connected whole, how small would our Earth appear, and how unworthy of the boastful importance which we are apt to attach to it! If there be inhabitants on any of the exterior planets, they see the Earth merely as a small star, shining by the light which she receives from the Sun, and which she reflects from her own surface. That the Earth is round the proofs are many and easy: for, in addition to the gradual appearance, from the top downwards, of a ship coming into port, and the fact of the world having been sailed round, which amounts to practical conviction, yet, as this sailing has always been in the direction of East and West, the Earth might be cylindrical, and this Eastern and Western circumnavigation still have taken place; but, in sailing southward, we observe that the fixed stars in the Northern heaven sink down towards the horizon, and the Southern stars keep on rising in the sky; the reverse taking place as we return northward. This circumstance is beautifully alluded to in the Lusiad of Camoëns, a Portuguese poem, relating to the discovery of India. O'er the wild waves as southward thus we stray, In the wide void we lose their cheering beams: Lower and lower still the Pole-star gleams, Till past the limit, where the car of day Rolled o'er our heads, and poured the downward ray, For here we saw Calisto's star retire Beneath the waves, unawed by Juno's ire. The latter part of this quotation implies, that when the navigators had got some way below the tropic of Capricorn, they lost sight of the constellations Boötes and the Great Bear. The Earth, however, like all the other planets, is not quite of a globular shape; and, before we proceed further, it may be desirable to explain why it is that none of the planets are precisely globular, but are somewhat flattened at two opposite sides, into a shape which is called an oblate spheroid, but which will be sufficiently comprehended, if we compare it to an orange. All the planets, besides revolving round the Sun, have, as we said, a revolution on their own axes; that is, they spin round like a top. What may have been the original cause of this motion has never been discovered. We can only conclude that it was given to those bodies by the great Creator, for his own wise purposes, and according to his own fixed and inscrutable decree. Hidden as the cause of this motion is from us, we can, however, trace its effects in many important circumstances; one of which is, the oblateness, or flattening of the revolving bodies. There is a kind of force called centrifugal, occasioned whenever a spinning round is performed: this force tends to throw the body, or anything which rests upon that body, away from the centre as far as possible, and may be illustrated in a variety of ways. A pail of water may be suspended by a rope, and turned rapidly round in a vertical circle without wasting a drop of the water; although in every revolution, the pail, and the water which it contains, strive to recede from the hand, which is the centre of motion, as far as possible, during the revolution, by virtue of the centrifugal, or centre-flying force, which is imparted to them in proportion to the rapidity of motion. When the pail is upside down, the natural tendency of the water is to be The annual, diurnal, and libratory motions, explained in this poured out towards the ground; but this tendency is coun paper. teracted by the centrifugal force, which tends to drive the 401 water away from the central force which retains it. It is on a similar principle that a slinger propels a stone to a great distance: the hand is the centre of motion; and he turns the stone rapidly round in order to gain for it a centrifugal force, which shall carry it to a great distance, as soon as it is released. If we drive a wire through any round body, and make the surface of this body equally wet all over, and then spin it round by means of the wire, the moisture will be collected in greater quantity at those parts of the surfaces most removed from the wire; while, at the parts near the wire, the quantity will be diminished: the centrifugal force urges the fluid away from the central part to the part furthest removed from the wire; which part describes the largest circle in going round. Now, the same line of argument will apply to a revolving planet: the surface of the Earth moves round its axis (an imaginary line, the extremities of which are called its poles,) with a velocity of 1042 miles per hour, at the equator, a line supposed to be drawn all round the globe, at an equal distance from the two poles and at right angles with the Earth's axis. It is clear, therefore, that the velocity of the rotation of any part of the Earth's surface must diminish as we recede from the equator and approach the poles. But, as the equatorial parts especially, acquire such à vast centrifugal power, the effect of it is, that the Earth bulges out at those parts most removed from the axis of rotation. The extent, to which this bulging has been carried in the case of the Earth, during the lapse of nearly sixty centuries, will be seen from the following dimensions:-the smaller diameter of the Earth, measured along the polar axis, is 7899 English miles; and the greater diameter, which is the diameter of the equator, is 7926 miles, which, therefore, exceeds the other by about twenty-seven miles: if we take the average of these two diameters, we may say that the Earth's diameter is about 7912 miles; consequently, the circumference of the Earth amounts to 24,899 miles. Our planet, when in perihelion, that is, at its nearest point to the Sun, is about ninety-three millions of miles distant from the Sun, and about ninety six millions of miles distant therefrom, when in aphelion, that is, the point furthest removed from the Sun. These two terms will be understood by referring to the ellipse, or oval, which was represented in our first paper: the Sun is situated, not in the centre, but in one focus of the ellipse; and when the Earth is nearest to the Sun's focus, she is said to be in perihelion; when farthest therefrom, in aphelion. Hence, its average distance from the centre of its annual motion, is about ninety-five millions of miles. The path, which the Earth describes round the Sun, is, therefore, an orbit of about six hundred millions of miles; and this enormous distance she traverses at the rate of 68,000 miles an hour, or about nineteen miles in a second, in 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 49 seconds, being the period to which we give the name of year. If the Earth did not revolve on her axis, we, who inhabit its surface, should see the Sun apparently making a revolution round the Earth in the course of a year: a revolution which, however, would be altogether imaginary, owing to the fallacy of the evidence of our senses. The Earth moves in her orbit; but we cannot see that it is moving, because we are on its surface, and are moving in a like direction, and with a like velocity. The motion of the Earth is of a smooth, equable, and unimpeded kind; which sort of motion, if we experience anything like it by land or water, our senses may be lulled into a forgetfulness of our being carried along, while the stationary objects on either side, the hedges, trees, banks, &c.,-seem endued with motion, and glide rapidly past us. If this be the case with respect to the annual motion of the Earth round the Sun, how much more forcible is the application of this analogy to the diurnal motion of the Earth on her axis! The Sun, the planets with their moons, the comets occasionally, and innumerable fixed stars, are placed in an apparent hollow sphere around us; and as we come opposite to different parts of the heavens in succession by our diurnal rotation, it appears to us as if the whole of this concave sphere kept on revolving round our Earth. The term of a year, just spoken of, is the time taken up by the Sun in passing, apparently, from a particular point of the ecliptic to the same point again: say, the first point of Aries, being one of the two points, where the equator and ecliptic cut each other. This is called the solar, or tropical year, the time it takes the Sun to visit the tropics and return to the equator; whereas, the time taken up by the Sun, in passing from a certain fixed star to the same star again, consists of 365 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes, and 12 seconds, and is called the sidereal year; the year as determined by observation of a particular star. This latter is twenty minutes, twenty-three seconds, longer than the former; and is owing to a slow, but constant, alteration of the position of the equinoctial points. The actual time in which the diurnal revolution of the Earth is completed, is 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds; but, owing to the motion of the Earth in her orbit at the same time, it is twenty-four hours, upon an average, throughout the year, before the Sun can pass from the meridian of a place to the same meridian again. This meridian implies a line drawn from North to South, going through any particular place, to which line the Sun becomes vertical every day at noon. The axis, on which the Earth is supposed to revolve, is inclined to the plane of the Earth's orbit, or ecliptic, at an angle of about 66 degrees. Now, as the plane of the equator is perpendicular to the axis of the earth, it follows that the plane of the equator is inclined to the plane of the ecliptic at an angle of about 234 degrees. Very remarkable and important effects result from the rotation of the Earth on her axis, and from the obliquity of the equator with the ecliptic, which effects will occupy our attention more particularly in the next paper. We have already seen that the Earth is not now a perfectly geometrical globe; and it would strike us that, if there were no other cause to interfere with its due form, the existence of mountains and valleys on its surface is sufficient to disturb the tiny conception we have at first regarding This pendant world, in bigness as á star Of smallest magnitude close by the moon. MILTON'S Par. Løst, b. ii. But our conceptions of the extent of the earth's surface, which are contracted when we compare the Earth with the universe, become enlarged by referring it to ourselves. Hence, by instituting an arithmetical comparison between the Earth and a globe of eighteen inches diameter, if we wished to form at its proper place on the latter, and in its proper proportion, the very highest mountain in the world, which is the Chumularee, belonging to the Himalayah range, in Asia, and 29,000 feet in height, the elevation on the artificial globe would be about the one-fiftieth of an inch. It is probable that the Earth serves, only in a more efficient manner, the same purpose to the Moon that the Moon serves to the Earth; undergoing all the changes which we see in the Moon, and appearing nearly thirteen times larger, and consequently much more brilliant. Its appearance to the Moon is represented at the head of this paper. This representation is, of course, fanciful; and to estimate it fairly we must indulge ourselves in the sup position that the lunar inhabitants, if there be any, are, for the most part, in similar circumstances with ourselves. We have before stated that the diameter of the Sun is 111 times as great as that of the Earth. Now this propor tion makes the solar globe to be, as a whole, 1,384,472 times as large as the globe of the Earth; though the density of the latter is about four times as great as that of the former. The average density of the Earth is 4 times that of water: so that it would seem that the Sun is composed of matter somewhat more dense, or consistent, than water. THE MOON. Meanwhile the Moon Full orbed, and breaking through the scattered clouds, Shows her broad visage in the crimsoned East. Turned to the Sun direct, her spotted disk, Where mountains rise, umbrageous dales descend, And caverns deep, as optic tube descries, A smaller Earth, gives us his blaze again, Void of its flame, and sheds a softer day. Now through the passing cloud she seems to stoop,Now up the pure cerulean rides sublime.-THOMSON. When the poet wrote these beautiful lines, we can imagine, from the context, that he was under the influence of those feelings, which are produced in men by the aspect of the quiet, moon-lit scene of nature; when the tumults, excited by day, and the passions roused by intercourse with fellow-mortals, are becalmed by the clear, cold, silence, which pervades the open country; such as makes melancholy have something of a pleasing turn, when we love to walk forth To behold the wand'ring Moon, Riding near her highest noon, Through the heaven's wide pathless way, Stooping through a fleecy cloud.-MILTON'S Il Penseroso. We will consider chiefly the circumstances which relate to the Moon as a celestial body, independant of the Earth. The Moon is about 2060 miles in diameter; that is, her diameter is rather more than a quarter of that of the Earth, which is about fifty times the size of the Moon. Her mean distance from the Earth, as calculated from her horizontal parallax, is almost 240,000 miles; and she moves in her Course round the Earth at the rate of about 2290 miles per hour. The Moon shines by reflecting the Sun's light, as first supposed by Thales, the Grecian astronomer. Plato supposed that it was composed of fire; and Aristotle, that it shone by its own native light. The Moon's light has been found, as far as our means of observation extend, to be quite devoid of heat. This fact has been proved by concentrating 306 times the rays of the full Moon, when on the meridian, by a powerful burning-glass of three feet in diameter; the focus of which rays has not affected the most delicate thermometer. It has been shown by experiment, that the light of the Sun is 300,000 times greater than that of the Moon. Now we will suppose that the heating power of the Sun, compared with that of the Moon, is in the same proportion. The direct rays of the Sun are capable of elevating the thermometer 237°. The Moon's beams would therefore raise the thermometer, according to this calculation, only roth of a degree; and, if these moon-beams were concentrated 306 times, the elevation of the thermometer might be of a degree. But, even this calculation is considered to be too favourable to the heating power of the moon-beams, and cannot be borne out by experience. The Moon, then, not possessing any heating rays, that are cognizable by man, does not seem likely to possess or exert any influence over the herbs, flowers, and other productions of the earth, as was imagined by the old botanists. We read in the 33rd chapter of Deuteronomy, verse 14, where Moses, the Jewish lawgiver, speaks of the blessings of Joseph, that he refers to "the precious fruits brought forth by the sun, and the precious things put forth by the We ought to observe that, in the original Hebrew, the word moon is used in the plural number; and in the next place, commentators have offered two senses of the latter phrase:first, it may imply the productions of the ground made to spring up by the dews, which descend at night, when the Moon is visible; or, secondly, we may | understand the productions of the earth, which appear respectively in their different months, or moons; the former of these two words being only a derivation of the latter. moon. The inclination of the Moon's axis to the plane of the ecliptic is only about 1°; so that her seasons are permanent and without variety. The density of the Moon is considered to be somewhat greater than of the Earth. The Sun and the Moon have always attracted the attention of mankind more than the other celestial bodies, owing to their greater apparent size, and direct influence upon our globe. The Moon, revolving round the Earth, is called the Earth's satellite, or attendant. When the full Moon is viewed through a powerful telescope, her illuminated surface appears interspersed with dark spots and ridges, of every variety of shape, as represented in the subsequent figure; which kind of representation of the Moon was first sketched out by Hevelius, in the year 1645. There are valleys, or hollows, which are supposed to be three miles deep, and are surrounded by nearly circular margins, a phenomenon to which the Earth cannot afford a parallel. The spots have been so carefully noticed, that a catalogue of 89 of them has been prepared, in which a description of the form and appearance of each spot, and of its exact position on the Moon's surface, is given. The spots have had fanciful names applied to them,-sometimes they have been named after distinguished individuals, while at other times they have been named after certain places on the Earth's surface, such as Byzantium, Caucasus, Sogdiana, &c. The heights of the mountains, which have been observed on the Moon's surface, are very variously stated by different authors, according to the modes in which the observations were made:-one of these modes was to measure the lengths of the shadows, cast by the mountains, in consequence of the light of the Sun coming in a particular direction, the shadows being then compared with the whole diameter of the Moon. The bright spots are held to be the tops of lofty mountains illumined by sunshine; two or three of which Dr. Herschel observed to be of a volcanic nature, and to emit flames and smoke. The best authorities make the highest of these mountains less than two miles in height. Generally speaking, the dark parts are thought to be water, and the bright parts land; the former absorbing, and the latter reflecting the solar rays: while, at the same time, many astronomers think that there is not much water in the Moon, owing to the usually serene appearance of her disk, which seems free from clouds and undisturbed by fogs and vapours. If there be little or no water in the Moon, this circumstance may account for the vast hollows just spoken of; which sort of appearance the Earth might present if the oceans and lakes were suddenly drained off. But, in respect of the details of the surface of the lunar globe, there exists much variety of opinion among astronomers. The Moon is presumed to have no atmosphere, or one which is of a very thin character, because there have not yet been observed any effects of refraction, whereby the forms of planets, when being occulted, that is, passed over and hidden by the Moon, would appear distorted just before the act of occultation. This effect would result from the star or planet being seen through the Moon's atmosphere. But there does not seem an universal opinion among astronomers on this point; as several have recently given accounts, which, if correct, would lead us to conclude that there was a lunar atmosphere; while others say decidedly that there is not: it seems, however, to be agreed that the atmosphere must be of a very rare character. The Moon revolves in her orbit round the Earth at the same time that the Earth itself is revolving about the Sun: the consequence of which is, that the Moon traces a sort of spiral line round the Sun; because, by the time the Moon has made one revolution round the Earth, the Earth has performed nearly one-twelfth part of her annual circuit round the Sun. The Moon goes round the Earth about 12 times in the course of a year; and the actual time taken up by the moon in performing this circuit is about 27 days; but the time from new moon to new moon again is about 29 days. To each of these periods of time has been given the name of month; the former being called periodical, comprising the period of the Moon's course round the Earth; the latter synodical, or the month, as agreed upon by men in the infancy of society, and determined by the coming together of the Sun and Moon. The reason why the latter is longer than the former is, that, although the Moon might actually pass round the Earth in 27 days, if the Earth were still; yet, a longer time is consumed from one phase of the Moon to the same phase again, owing to the motion of the Earth in its orbit, in the same direction as the Moon's motion, from west to east; so that the extra 24 days are spent by the Moon in fetching up the overplus of the progress made in the mean time by the Earth. The Moon revolves on an axis, and it is remarkable that the time of this revolution is just equal to the time which she takes to revolve round the earth; a consequence of which is, that the Earth always has the same side of the Moon presented to it. The inhabitants, if any, on this side the Moon have the Earth always before them, while those on the remote side of the Moon can never be blessed with the view of it. The disk, which the Earth must exhibit to the inhabitants of the Moon, having a diameter nearly four times as large as the Moon's, is more than twelve times as large as that which the Moon offers to the Earth. The Earth must, of course, rise and set to the Moon, and go through the various phases of light, just as we see is done by our celestial attendant, owing to the motion of the Moon round the earth; otherwise, the Earth will appear fixed in the heavens, relatively to the stars, because the earth is the centre of the Moon's motion. The Earth too would turn on its axis nearly thirty times, while the Moon is moving once round,-a rapidity which must seem astonishing to the Lunarians. The phases exhibited to the Moon by the Earth, must be always the reverse of those exhibited at the same time by the Moon to the Earth, as will be evident from inspecting the subsequent diagram. We may imagine what must be the feeling of intense curiosity with which those on the further side of the Moon seek for information concerning the splendid orb, visible to the other lunar hemisphere. Suppose now that we, in England, were to hear of a splendid moon, of vast dimensions, being visible to the |