The details of the moon’s surface require for their discussion a whole
book, like that of Neison or the one by Nasmyth and Carpenter. Here a
few words must suffice. Mountain ranges like our Andes or Himalayas are
rare. Instead of that, we see an immense number of circular cavities,
with rugged edges and flat interior, often with a cone in the centre,
reminding one of instantaneous photographs of the splash of a drop of
water falling into a pool. Many of these are fifty or sixty miles
across, some more. They are generally spoken of as resembling craters
of volcanoes, active or extinct, on the earth. But some of those who
have most fully studied the shapes of craters deny altogether their
resemblance to the circular objects on the moon. These so-called
craters, in many parts, are seen to be closely grouped, especially in
the snow-white parts of the moon. But there are great smooth dark
spaces, like the clear black ice on a pond, more free from craters, to
which the equally inappropriate name of seas has been given. The most
conspicuous crater, _Tycho_, is near the south pole. At full moon there
are seen to radiate from Tycho numerous streaks of light, or “rays,”
cutting through all the mountain formations, and extending over fully
half the lunar disc, like the star-shaped cracks made on a sheet of ice
by a blow. Similar cracks radiate from other large craters. It must be
mentioned that these white rays are well seen only in full light of the
sun at full moon, just as the white snow in the crevasses of a glacier
is seen bright from a distance only when the sun is high, and
disappears at sunset. Then there are deep, narrow, crooked “rills”
which may have been water-courses; also “clefts” about half a mile
wide, and often hundreds of miles long, like deep cracks in the surface
going straight through mountain and valley.
The moon shares with the sun the advantage of being a good subject for
photography, though the planets are not. This is owing to her larger
apparent size, and the abundance of illumination. The consequence is
that the finest details of the moon, as seen in the largest telescope
in the world, may be reproduced at a cost within the reach of all.
No certain changes have ever been observed; but several suspicions have
been expressed, especially as to the small crater _Linné_, in the _Mare
Serenitatis_. It is now generally agreed that no certainty can be
expected from drawings, and that for real evidence we must await the
verdict of photography.
No trace of water or of an atmosphere has been found on the moon. It is
possible that the temperature is too low. In any case, no displacement
of a star by atmospheric refraction at occultation has been surely
recorded. The moon seems to be dead.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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