“That orbèd maiden, with white fire laden, Whom mortals call the moon, Glides glimmering o’er my fleece-like flow, By the midnight breezes strewn.” --SHELLEY, _The Cloud_. No orb in the sky has attracted more attention than the moon. Beautiful names have been given to this lesser light that rules the night, and poets have sung some of their sweetest songs, and artists have painted some of their finest pictures, to depict the wonderful charm of moonlight. The moon is in our minds associated with peace, silence, rest; the silver radiance causes no pain to the eyes, and like charity, while revealing objects, it adds to their beauty, and subdues defects. Much that by the light of day seems harsh and ugly appears picturesque and fascinating in the delicate splendor of the moonlight. Of moonlight rather than sunset might the poet sing:-- “The splendor falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story, The long light shakes across the lakes, And the wild cataract leaps in glory.” Those nations who have worshipped the sun as god of the day, have paid similar worship to the moon as goddess of the night. The ancient myths spoke of the moon as a pure and lonely maiden, fond of silence, hunting, and the forest shades. Increasing knowledge has shown us the moon as neither goddess nor maiden, but as a satellite of the earth, from which many ages ago it was cast off into space, and by the attraction of which it is held as by invisible and unbreakable chains. Being so much nearer to us than any other heavenly body, the moon was one of the earliest and best understood, and to it, about two hundred and fifty years ago, the first telescopes were turned with eager expectations of wonderful discoveries. The moon, at the nearest point in its orbit, is distant from us about two hundred and twenty-five thousand miles, only about twenty-eight times the diameter of the earth. Those travellers, who have again and again made the circuit of the earth, have in the aggregate passed over a greater distance than lies between us and the moon. Steam could take us there in less than a year; but if the man in the moon should begin to pelt stones at the earth, they would hit their mark in a little less than three days and two hours.