In our final chapter we considered the moon as a satellite, and sought to enhance popular regard for it on account of certain high functions which it performs for man’s benefit on this earth; but which are in great risk of being overlooked. We showed that, notwithstanding the moon’s occasionally useful service as a nocturnal luminary, it fills a far higher office as a sanitary agent by cleansing the shores of our seas and rivers through the agency of the tides. We pointed out the vast amount of absolutely mechanical work and commercial labour which the same tidal agency executes in transporting merchandize up and down our rivers—an amount that, to take the port of London alone, represents a money value _per annum_ that may be reckoned in millions sterling, seeing that if our river was tideless all transport would have to be done by manual or steam power. We then hinted at the stupendous reservoir of power that the tidal waters constitute, a form of power which has not as yet been sufficiently called into operation, but which may be invoked by-and-by, when we have begun to feel more acutely the consequences of our present prodigal use of the fuel that was stored up for us by bountiful nature ages upon ages ago. The moon’s services to the navigator, in affording him a ready means of finding his longitude at sea; to the chronologist and historian, as a timekeeper, counting periods too vast for accurate reckoning by other means; to the astronomer and student of nature, in revealing certain wonderful surroundings of the solar globe, which, but for the phenomena of eclipses caused by the moon’s interposition, would never have been suspected to exist—these were other functions that we dwelt upon, all too briefly for their deserts; and, lastly, we spoke of the moon as a medal of creation fraught with instructive suggestions, which it has been our endeavour to bring to notice in the course of this work. And from uses we passed to abuses, directing attention to a few popular errors and widespread illusions relating to lunar influence upon and in connection with things terrestrial. This part of our work might have been considerably expanded, for, in truth, the moon has been a misunderstood and misjudged body. Some justice we trust we have done to her: we have brought her face to the fireside; we have analysed her features, and told of virtues that few of her admiring beholders conceived her to possess. We have traced out her history, fraught with wonderful interest, and doubtless typical of the history of other spheres that in countless numbers pervade the universe: and now, having done our best to make all these points familiar, we commend the moon to still further study and still more intimate acquaintance, confident that she will repay all attentions, be they addressed to her as A PLANET, A WORLD, OR A SATELLITE. THE END. FOOTNOTES