THE huge bell of the cathedral rang

out midnight. Like clear crystal drops fell the transparent silver notes from the bright sky, as if they were echoes of angels' voices. Behind the dusky mountains rose the full orb of the moon in golden splendor, and poured its fairy light over the vast plain. Faint hazy mists swept across the valley, and slowly the pale gossamer light sank deeper into the dark narrow streets of the city. Like a gigantic churchyard lay the silent town at the feet of the mysterious globe in the high heavenseach house a coffin in which slept a thousand joys or sorrows. Only through one low window shone the feeble glimmer of a night-lamp. A mother was watching her sickly babe; fierce fever glared in its glowing face and burning eyes, and restlessly the poor child tossed from side to side. At last it grew quiet, and seemed to slumber. The mother stepped to the window and looked with tearful eye up to the moon. A feeling of deepest loneliness chilled her sinking heart; all around her slept ten thousands in happy peace; the wicked had ceased from troubling and the weary were at rest; she only watched with anguish the flickering life of her beloved.

"Oh," she sighed, "how peaceful and happy it must be up there in the silvery light of the moon! There is peace in her pale even light, quiet happiness in her calm, unbroken pilgrimage through the dark blue heavens And she wished she could wander in her sweet meadows and rest by her still waters. She prayed, half dreaming, half awake, that her soul might, hereafter, be allowed to rest from VOL. V.-22

the pain and sorrow of earthly life, in the calm sweet light of the moon, praising God and enjoying the peace that knows no end.

For so we dream, even in our day, of paradisiacal peace and mysterious charms in the moon; as thousands of years ago, the nations of the earth revered in her a godlike being, who lighted up the long, sad nights with her sweet, silvery light, and in chaste beauty, wove strange spells over the hearts of men. They built temples in honor of the goddess, priests sang her praises in mighty anthems, sacrifices won her favor and disarmed her just wrath. Lofty were her thrones in the far East; Asia and the world worshiped her, and great was the Diana of the Ephesians!

This faith, like alas! many a better faith, is found no longer among men. Superstition, alone, has remained. The Chinese beats his drums and gongs to keep the dragon from swallowing up his moon at the time of an eclipse, and the Wallachian peasant sees in her pale, faint glimmer how the vampire rises from his brother's grave. With us the telescope has stripped the moon of her divine attributes, and dry, sober calculations have torn all strange fancies and gay charms from the humble satellite of the earth.

Now the moon is simply a little globe, not much larger than America, so that the longest journey, that could be un dertaken there, would explore Asia from end to end. We can easily get there, for she is only about 240,000 miles from us, a mere trifle in comparison with the distance of the nearest star. Will you

accompany us? There is no luggage required, for there are plenty of castles in the air, and as for provisions, have not our very first lessons taught us the precious substance of which the moon is made? Passengers are not expected to travel with a huge telescope under the arm, and a book of logarithms in their hand. We leave that to the munificent Earl of Rosse, who compels the chaste goddess to come down within the familiar distance of three hundred miles, even to bold Ireland! We have, besides, cunning astronomers, who marshal with ease millions of numbers, and command the poor planets to appear in given places, threatening to deny their identity, if they do not appear within the minute. We are simple travellers, and, I fear, would not disdain a beanstalk, if we thought it the shortest road to heaven.

Once, on the moon, however, we are immediately struck with awe and wonder at the strange landscapes that we suspected from below, even with unarmed eyes, in the dark and light spots on the moon's disc. Now the grey portions become plains, the light ones mountains. That these brilliant spots are mountains, we know from their shadows, which always fall on the side opposite the sun, and which lengthen in precise proportion as the sun sinks lower. The most dazzling points, however, are not mountains but towering precipices, whose steep, smooth sides reflect the light with greatest force.

But how entirely different is this mountain scenery from that of the Alps or the Andes! Here we see no lofty, snow-covered peaks, no long, pleasing ridges and lovely valleys; not even the proud domes of the Cordilleras with their steep terraces are here represented. The whole surface of the moon is covered with circular walls, inclosing deep, dark caverns into which whole territories have sunk with their hills and mountains. Some of these huge abysses are more than fifty miles in diameter, others spread still wider, but all are engirt at the top by great walls of rock, which are serrated and often crowned by lofty peaks. The smallest and most regular are called craters, from their resemblance to the craters of the earth, but the form is all they have in common. Volcanoes the moon does not know, and the shining points on her night side, which Herschel loved so much to observe, are only the highest points of lofty mountains, resplendent in brilliant sunshine.

On the southwestern part of the disc we see one of those gigantic, elevated tablelands, with which the moon abounds. They are evidently the oldest formations, fearfully torn and tarnished in every direction, full of craters, fissures and fractures and traversed by long furrow-like valleys; but in their midst we see, invariably, a most beautiful variety of landscapes, such as our earth boasts of: groups of mountains, broad, vast plains, gently swelling ridges, and fair valleys, dotted with numerous, wellrounded hills.

By their side we notice one of those regular, and therefore probably more recent circular mountains, of which more than 1,500 are already known, and which, in some parts of the moon, stand so closely packed together, as to give to these regions the appearance of a honeycomb. Their walls are nearly all around of the same height; within, their straight, steep sides sink suddenly into the abyss; without they fall off more gradually in terraces, and send occasional spurs into the surrounding country. In the centre there rises commonly an isolated peak, sometimes merely a humble hill, at other times a lofty mountain or even a small cluster of conical eminences. These central heights never rise to a level with the circular ranges; some are nearly 5000 feet high, but then the impassable wall, that surrounds them without breach or pass, and shuts them off from the rest of the universe, towers aloft to the amazing height of 17,000 feet!

If the number of these circular moun tains is so great, that of small, burnt out craters is still more astounding; even a moderately powerful telescope shows us some 20,000. Inside they often sink to an incredible depth, into which their walls cast a deep, everlasting shadow, or where there reigns entire gloom, which the light of the sun, even at its highest, never reaches. Their tops, however, when fully lighted up at the time of full moon, shine in glorious splendor, reflecting the sun's rays with dazzling lustre. Others show only their margin illuminated, like a delicate ring of light, forming a magic circle around the dark, yawning crater. Now and then we see two or more strung together like rows of pearls, connected with each other by canals, or even two at a time surrounded by a common wall and combining their desolate horrors.

Long chains of mountains, like the Alps and Andes of our mother earth,

are rare in the moon, and even when met with, only short and without spurs or valleys. The longest ridge extends about 450 miles, but its peaks rise to the prodigious height of 17,000 feet. On the other hand, the moon abounds in countless, isolated cones, which in the northern half group themselves into long, broad belts. Like the thorns of a chestnut, thousands of these mountains rise suddenly from the plain, and are seen to stretch their long, gaunt arms from the outline of the moon's disk into the dark sky. Even the vast plains of our little neighbor are covered with long, curiously-formed ranges of low hills, which, though often a mile wide, never rise beyond a thousand feet, and therefore show us their shadow only when the sun is extremely low.

Much as these strange forms differ from all we see on earth, we are still more struck with the quaint, mysterious fissures, narrow but deep, which pass in almost straight lines, like railways, right through plain and mountain, cut even craters in two, and often end themselves in craters. At full moon they appear to us as lines of brilliant light, at other times as black threads, and must, therefore, have a width of at least a thousand feet. We have, on earth, nothing to compare with them; for even the terrible gullies which cross the prairies of Texas, dwindle into utter nothingness by the side of these gigantic rents. As long as men saw every day new surprising analogies between the moon and the earth, and the grey spots were oceans, the light ones continents, these inexplicable lines also appeared now as rivers and now as canals, or even as beautifully Macadamized turnpikes! The citizens of the moon can, however, hardly yet afford building roads, by water or by land, of such gigantic width; nor will the fact, that these deep furrows cut through craters and lofty mountains, and invariably preserve the same level, admit of such an interpretation. At all events those only can see canals and roads on the moon, who have already found there cities and fortified places.

What gigantic and astounding revolutions must have passed over the moon, to produce these colossal mountains, rising not unfrequently to a height of 26,000 feet; these peculiar, massive rings, these enormous cliffs and furrows! How insignificant appear, in comparison, the greatest events of that kind, on our earth, where even proud Etna hardly

rivals the smallest of the moon's craters! Their universal tendency to round forms has led to the idea that all these elevations and indentations are the effect of one and the same mysterious power. Everything favors the presumption, that the moon was originally a liquid mass, and that, whilst it became solid, new forces were unloosened in the interior, causing gigantic eruptions, as when the pent up air bubbles up from a mass of molten metal. Some of these bubbles would upon bursting, naturally leave behind a circular ridge and a slight rise in the centre of the cavity. These forces seem to have been most active near the poles whose desolate regions are dotted over with countless hills and mountains; near the equator vast plains stretch out, broken only here and there by a lofty peak or solitary crater. Thus man, pigmy man, ventures already to read the riddles of mysterious events that happened in the earliest times of its history in a great world, which his foot has never yet trodden! He has, however, not only measured the mountains of the moon, and laid out maps and charts of her surface, but he has given names to mountains and islands. Formerly the most renowned philosophers were thus immortalized, we trust without any insidious comparison between philosophy and moonshine. Of late, however, dead or living astronomers, who often enjoyed little enough of this world's goods, have been presented with large estates in the moon. Thus Kepler, whom the great emperor and the empire of Germany suffered to starve, obtained one of the most brilliant mountains for his share; and Tycho, Copernicus, Hipparchus and Albategnius are his neighbors in those regions, though tolerably far apart on earth, in point of time, country, and religion. Even Humboldt has already his possessions in the moon.

Nothing strikes the general observer so much, when his eye rambles inquiringly over the surface of the moon, as the incredible variety of light in different parts. Some have sought the cause of this striking phenomenon in the diversity of the soil, ascribing to the darker portions a looser earth, and perceiving in the greenish sheen of some plains even traces of vegetation. Doubtful as it needs be, whether color could be seen at such a distance, this is certain, that the lighter portions represent rigid masses and reflecting elevations. A most strange sensation is produced by the long beams

of dazzling light, resembling liquid silver, which, now isolated and now united together into broad bands of rays, pass in countless hosts over whole, large regions. They often centre in some peculiarly brilliant, circular mountain, and the gigantic Tycho sends his rays of surpassing splendor over more than onefourth of the whole orb, over hill and dale, valley and mountain. At other places they form broad masses of mystic light, often twenty miles square. Mountain ridges or lava streams they are not, though formerly the world believed them such, because they pass over the very tops of mountains. Can they be glassy or crystallized masses of volcanic material, which suddenly cooled, now stand in rigid pallor and reflect lights with an intensity unknown to our earth?

As yet we have met with no trace of life on the moon. Are there no inhabitants on our strange satellite? In our day, when the plurality of worlds threatens to become the war-cry of sects and schools, the question is but natural, and many an eager inquirer has no doubt asked himself: what may life be on the moon? Have they built cities and founded empires there like the men of the earth? Does a blue sky smile upon them, and do merry springs leap down the green slopes of their mountains.

Nor is the question altogether of recent date. While Sir John Herschel explored the wonders of the southern heaven on the Cape of Good Hope, there appeared unexpectedly a little pamphlet, which created no small sensation even among the learned. It purported to be his first account of new discoveries in the moon, and contained marvellous reports of sheep of strange shape, of men with the wings of bats, of cities and fortified towns. The world, however, soon found that this was an ingenious hoax from the pen of an American, who had thus practically tested the credulity of his contemporaries. The credit which the clever imposture found, even among the wellinformed, is ample apology for the sanguine hopes of those who still hope, by the aid of improved instruments, to discover the Man in the Moon; or, like good old Bishop Wilkins, to pay him a neighborly visit, for which, in sober earnest, most ingenious plans have been devised. Distinguished astronomers insist upon having seen large buildings in the moon; Gruithuisen tells us of an edifice near the equator, in its most fertile regious, of twenty-five miles diameter and

surrounded with large walls, which face, with astounding accuracy, the four quarters of the compass. As it is only le premier pas qui coûte, Schwabe in Germany soon discovered on the outside some smaller branches, and even earthworks!

One point, above all, is apparently altogether lost sight of, by those who cherish such sanguine hopes. If we could see a man, or any other object at the distance of five miles, it would still require an instrument, which would magnify objects 50,000 times, to see anything of that size on the moon. But if the far-distant future should ever produce such improvement in telescopes, that would only increase, and in alarming proportion, the difficulties arising from the density of our atmosphere and the daily movement of the earth. Even with our present instruments, far as they are yet from the desired power, these impediments are so great as seriously to impair their usefulness. All that has as yet been accomplished is to see objects of the extent of 100 yards; perhaps we may, ere long, succeed in distinguishing works of the size of our pyramids and largest cathedrals; but at best they will only appear as minute points, far too small to exhibit form or shape.

The eye, then, is utterly incapable of discovering life-endowed beings in the moon. This would, of course, in itself not preclude the existence of inhabitants in that globe. Every argument, on the contrary, leads rather to the conclusion, that the life of other worlds is, on the whole, governed by the same laws as that of our earth. The same infinite variety which astounds the eye and mind of man, when he studies our animal creation here below, and the exquisite adaptation of these countless forms to their precise purpose, must needs continue throughout creation. God is not only great, but also consistent in his greatness, and the eternal laws of nature, which are, after all, but an expression of His will, must apply to other worlds also. The inquiring mind will, therefore, not without benefit try to derive additional knowledge ever from the scanty facts with which we are acquainted.

We know tolerably well the soil, the climate and the surface of the moon. What, then, do they teach us as to life on that globe? The first circumstance that strikes the traveller on the moon, is the wonderful facility of motion. Gravity is in the moon six times less than on

the earth, so that the same power with which we here lift eighteen pounds would there raise a hundred weight. The arm that can throw a stone on earth ten feet high, would on the moon throw it up to sixty feet. The inequalities of the soil there would, to an earth-born man, be no difficulties; he would glide over hills and mountains, which here below require gigantic structures, like the winged birds of heaven. This must at once produce a radical difference between life on earth and life on the moon.

If we look next for the two great elements of earthly life, air and water, we find that the moon is but ill provided for in that respect. With all sympathy for great discoverers and sanguine optimists, we are compelled to deny the existence of either water and air, as we have it on earth, in our satellite. We know the presence of air by the fact that all air breaks and weakens rays of light, which pass through it. The atmosphere of the moon shows no such effects. Her landscapes appear as clear and distinct on the margin as in the centre of the orb, and when stars pass over the latter, they show no diminution of light at the time of their entrance into the luminous circle, no increase of light when they leave it again. The evaporation of water also would be betrayed by the same breaking of rays, if that element were mixed up with the air, as it is in our own atmosphere, or if it covered any part of the moon's surface. Unwilling as we are to banish her inhabitants exclusively to that side of the moon, which human eye has never yet beheld, because it is constantly turned away from the earth, and there, at fancy's bid to revel in a paradise with purling brooks and balmy zephyrs, nothing is left but to assume that the air is too thin and the water too ethereal to be perceived by the instruments now at our command. The careful calculations of the great astronomer Bessel resulted in the bare possibility of an atmosphere, a thousand times thinner than our own, showing conclusively how little we can expect to find life on the moon resembling in any way life on earth. The inhabitants of that world, if there be any, must have other bodies than ours, other blood must run through their veins, and other lungs breathe their air-we could never live in such a world.

And what a curious almanac these good people in the moon would have! There, days are as long as years, and day and year are equal to our months, 29 days,

12 hours and 45 minutes. The seasons differ but very little from each other. On the equator there reigns eternal summer, for the sun is ever in the zenith; the poles are buried in eternal winter. The days are of equal length throughout the year; all days equally light, all nights equally dark. The absence of an atmosphere deprives the moon of the sweet charms of a twilight, and glaring day would follow gloomy night with the rapidity of lightning, if the slow rising and setting of the sun did not slightly break the suddenness of the transition. Human eyes, however, could not bear the fierce contrasts of light and shadow; they would long in vain for the soft intervals between the two extremes, the other colors, which beautify our world with their joyous variety and soft harmony. The sky is there not blue, but even in daytime black, and by the side of the dazzling sun the stars claim their place and light in the heavens. Near the poles the mountain tops shine in unbroken splendor year after year, but the valleys know neither day nor night, scantily lighted as they ever are by the faint glimmer reflected from the surrounding walls.

That side of the moon which is turned from us, has a night of nearly fifteen days; the stars only, and planets, shine on its ever dark sky. The side we see, on the contrary, knows no night; the earth lights it up with never ceasing earth-shine, a light fourteen times stronger than that which we receive from the moon. We recognize our own light, lent to our friend, in the faint, greyish glimmer of that portion of the moon which before and after the new moon receives no light from the sun, but only from the earth, and reflects it back again upon us. Mornings in fall show it more brilliant than evenings in spring, because in autumn the continents of the earth with their stronger light illumine the moon, while in spring she only receives a fainter light from our oceans. Our orb appears to the Man in the Moon as changeable as his home to us, and he might speak of the first or last quarter of the earth, of new earth and full earth. The whole heaven moves before him once in 29 days around its axis; the sun and stars rise and set regularly once in the long day; but the vast orb of our earth is nearly immovable. All around is in slow, unceasing motion: the mild face of the earth alone, a gorgeous moon of immense magnitude, never sets nor