The moon : $b a full description and map of its principal physical featuresElger, Thomas Gwyn
Science
The moon : $b a full description and map of its principal physical features
Elger, Thomas Gwyn
Moon
CRATERS.--Under this generic name is placed a vast number of formations
exhibiting a great difference in size and outward characteristics, though
generally (under moderate magnification) of a circular or sub-circular
shape. Their diameter varies from 15 miles or more to 3, and even less,
and their flanks rise much more steeply to the summit, which is seldom
very lofty, than those of the ring-plains, and fall more gradually to the
floor. There is no portion of the moon in which they do not abound,
whether it be on the ramparts, floors, and outer slopes of walled and
ring plains, the summits and escarpments of mountain ranges, amid the
intricacies of the highlands, or on the grey surface of the Maria. In
many instances they have a brighter and newer aspect than the larger
formations, often being the most brilliant points on their walls, when
they are found in this position. Very frequently too they are not only
very bright themselves, but stand on bright areas, whose borders are
generally concentric with them, which shine with a glistening lustre, and
form a kind of halo of light around them. Euclides and Bessarion A, and
the craters east of Landsberg, are especially interesting examples. It
seems not improbable that these areas may represent deposits formed by
some kind of matter ejected from the craters, but whether of ancient or
modern date, it is, of course, impossible to determine. Future observers
will perhaps be in a better position to decide the question without
cavil, if such eruptions should again take place. Like the larger
enclosures, these smaller objects frequently encroach upon each other--
crater-ring overlapping crater-ring, as in the case of Thebit, where a
large crater, which has interfered with the continuity of the east wall,
has, in its turn, been disturbed by a smaller crater on its own east
wall. The craters in many cases, possibly in the majority if we could
detect them, have central mountains, some of them being excellent tests
for telescopic definition--as, for example, the central peaks of
Hortensius, Bessarion, and that of the small crater just mentioned on the
east wall of Thebit A. A tendency to a linear arrangement is often
displayed, especially among the smaller class, as is also their
occurrence in pairs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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