“The cold chaste Moon, the Queen Of Heaven’s bright Isles; Who makes all beautiful On which she smiles: That wandering shrine of soft Yet _icy flame_, Which ever is transformed Yet still the same; And _warms not_ but _illumes_.” --SHELLEY. The “pale _cold_ Moon” is an expression not only beautiful poetically but evidently true philosophically. If, as we have now seen, the very nature of a reflector demands certain conditions and the Moon does not manifest these conditions, it must of necessity be concluded that the Moon is _not_ a _reflector_, but a _self-luminous body_. If self-luminous her surface could not be darkened or eclipsed by a shadow of the Earth--supposing such were thrown upon it. The luminosity instead of being diminished would be greater in proportion to the greater density or darkness of the shadow. As the light in a lantern shines most brightly in the darkest places, so would the Moon’s self-luminous surface be most intense in the deepest part of the Earth’s shadow. It is thus rendered undeniable that a Lunar Eclipse _does_ not and _could_ not arise from a shadow of the Earth! As a _Solar_ Eclipse occurs from the Moon passing over the Sun; so from the evidence it is clear that a Lunar Eclipse _can only_ arise from a similar cause--a body semi-transparent and well-defined passing before the Moon, or between her surface and the observer on the surface of the Earth. That such a body exists is admitted by several distinguished astronomers. In the report of the Council of the Royal Astronomical Society for June, 1850, it is stated, “We may well doubt whether that body which we call the Moon is the _only satellite_ of the Earth.” In the report of the Academy of Sciences for October 12, 1846, and again for August, 1847, the Director of one of the French Observatories gives a number of observations and calculations which have led him to conclude that “there is at least _one non-luminous body_ of considerable magnitude which is attached as a _satellite to this Earth_.”[19] [19] Referred to in Lardner’s “Museum of Science,” p. 159.