was once--or rather the materials of the moon--in the immediate vicinity of the earth. There, however, dynamics leaves us, and unfortunately withholds its accurate illumination from the events which immediately preceded that state of things. The theory of tidal evolution which I am describing in these lectures is mainly the work of Professor George H. Darwin of Cambridge. Much of the original parts of the theory of the tides was due to Sir William Thomson, and I have also mentioned how Professor Purser contributed an important element to the dynamical theory. It is, however, Darwin who has persistently deduced from the theory all the various consequences which can be legitimately drawn from it. Darwin, for instance, pointed out that as the moon is receding from us, it must, if we only look far enough back, have been once in practical contact with the earth. It is to Darwin also that we owe many of the other parts of a fascinating theory, either in its mathematical or astronomical aspect; but I must take this opportunity of saying, that I do not propose to make Professor Darwin or any of the other mathematicians I have named responsible for all that I shall say in these lectures. I must be myself accountable for the way in which the subject is being treated, as well as for many of the illustrations used, and some of the deductions I have drawn from the subject. It is almost unavoidable for us to make a surmise as to the cause by which the moon had come into this remarkable position close to the earth at the most critical epoch of earth-moon history.