E-text prepared by Eric Hutton, Irma Spehar, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 24236-h.htm or 24236-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/2/3/24236/24236-h/24236-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/2/3/24236/24236-h.zip) The Romance of Science. TIME AND TIDE, A Romance of the Moon. Being Two Lectures Delivered in the Theatre of the London Institution, on the Afternoons of November 19 and 26, 1888. by SIR ROBERT S. BALL, LL.D., F.R.S., Royal Astronomer of Ireland. Published under the Direction of the Committee of General Literature and Education Appointed by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, Northumberland Avenue, W.C.; 43, Queen Victoria Street, E.C. Brighton: 135, North Street. New York: E. & J. B. Young & Co. [Illustration: VIEW OF THE MOON TWO DAYS AFTER FIRST QUARTER. From a photograph by Mr. LEWIS M. RUTHERFORD. _Frontispiece._] TO The Members of the London Institution I DEDICATE THIS LITTLE BOOK. PREFACE. Having been honoured once again with a request that I should lecture before the London Institution, I chose for my subject the Theory of Tidal Evolution. The kind reception which these lectures received has led to their publication in the present volume. I have taken the opportunity to supplement the lectures as actually delivered by the insertion of some additional matter. I am indebted to my friends Mr. Close and Mr. Rambaut for their kindness in reading the proofs. ROBERT S. BALL. _Observatory_, CO. DUBLIN, _April_ 26, 1889. TIME AND TIDE. LECTURE I. It is my privilege to address you this afternoon on a subject in which science and poetry are blended in a happy conjunction. If there be a peculiar fascination about the earlier chapters of any branch of history, how great must be the interest which attaches to that most primeval of all terrestrial histories which relates to the actual beginnings of this globe on which we stand. In our efforts to grope into the dim recesses of this awful past, we want the aid of some steadfast light which shall illumine the dark places without the treachery of the will-o'-the-wisp. In the absence of that steadfast light, vague conjectures as to the beginning of things could never be entitled to any more respect than was due to mere matters of speculation.