primary planets of the system, and first to the planet Saturn. We need
not say that this remarkable globe has for many ages been an object
of the most ardent astronomical curiosity. The stupendous phenomenon
of its double ring having baffled the scrutiny and conjecture of many
generations of astronomers, was finally abandoned as inexplicable. It
is well known that this planet is stationed in the system 900 millions
of miles distant from the sun, and that having the immense diameter
of 79,000 miles, it is more than nine hundred times larger than the
earth. Its annual motion round the sun is not accomplished in less than
twenty-nine and a half of our years, whilst its diurnal rotation upon
its axis is accomplished in 10h. 16m., or considerably less than half
a terrestrial day. It has not less than seven moons, the sixth and the
seventh of which were discovered by the elder Herschel in 1789. It is
thwarted by mysterious belts or bands of a yellowish tinge, and is
surrounded by a double ring--the outer one of which is 204,000 miles
in diameter. The outside diameter of the inner ring is 184,000 miles,
and the breadth of the outer one being 7,200 miles, the space between
them is 28,000 miles. The breadth of the inner ring is much greater
than that of the other, being 20,000 miles; and its distance from
the body of Saturn is more than 30,000. These rings are opaque, but
so thin that their edge has not until now been discovered. Sir John
Herschel's most interesting discovery with regard to this planet is the
demonstrated fact that these two rings are composed of the fragments
of two destroyed worlds, formerly belonging to our solar system, and
which, on being exploded, were gathered around the immense body of
Saturn by the attraction of gravity, and yet kept from falling to its
surface by the great centrifugal force created by its extraordinary
rapidity on its axis. The inner ring was therefore the first of
these destroyed worlds (the former station of which in the system is
demonstrated in the argument which we subjoin), which was accordingly
carried round by the rotary force, and spread forth in the manner we
see. The outer ring is another world exploded in fragments, attracted
by the law of gravity as in the former case, and kept from uniting with
the inner ring by the centrifugal force of the latter. But the latter,
having a slower rotation than the planet, has an inferior centrifugal
force, and accordingly the space between the outer and inner ring is
nearly ten times less than that between the inner ring and the body of
Saturn. Having ascertained the mean density of the rings, as compared
with the density of the planet, Sir John Herschel has been enabled to
effect the following beautiful demonstration. [Which we omit, as too
mathematical for popular comprehension.--_Ed. Sun._]
Dr. Herschel clearly ascertained that these rings are composed of
rocky strata, the skeletons of former globes, lying in a state of wild
and ghastly confusion, but not devoid of mountains and seas. * * * *
The belts across the body of Saturn he has discovered to be the smoke
of a number of immense volcanoes, carried in these straight lines by
the extreme velocity of the rotary motion. * * * * [And these also
he has ascertained to be the belt of Jupiter.--But the portion of
the work which is devoted to this subject, and to the other planets,
as also that which describes the astronomer's discoveries among the
stars, is comparatively uninteresting to general readers, however
highly it might interest others of scientific taste and mathematical
acquirements.--_Ed. Sun._]
* * * * "It was not until the new moon of the month of March, that the
weather proved favorable to any continued series of lunar observations;
and Dr. Herschel had been too enthusiastically absorbed in
demonstrating his brilliant discoveries in the southern constellations,
and in constructing tables and catalogues of his new stars, to avail
himself of the few clear nights which intervened.
"On one of these, however, Mr. Drummond, myself, and Mr. Holmes, made
those discoveries near the Bay of Rainbows, to which I have somewhere
briefly alluded. The bay thus fancifully denominated is a part of
the northern boundary of the first great ocean which I have lately
described, and is marked in the chart with the letter O. The tract
of country which we explored on this occasion is numbered 6, 5, 8,
7, in the catalogue, and the chief mountains to which these numbers
are attached are severally named Atlas, Hercules, Heraclides Verus,
and Heraclides Falsus. Still farther to the north of these is the
island circle called Pythagoras, and numbered 1; and yet nearer the
meridian line is the mountainous district marked R, and called the
Land of Drought, and Q, the Land of Hoar Frost; and certainly the name
of the latter, however theoretically bestowed, was not altogether
inapplicable, for the tops of its very lofty mountains were evidently
covered with snow, though the valleys surrounding them were teeming
with the luxuriant fertility of midsummer. But the region which we
first particularly inspected was that of Heraclides Falsus (No. 7),
in which we found several new specimens of animals, all of which were
horned and of a white or grey color; and the remains of three ancient
triangular temples which had long been in ruins. We thence traversed
the country southeastward, until we arrived at Atlas (No. 6), and it
was in one of the noble valleys at the foot of this mountain that we
found the very superior species of the Vespertilio-homo. In stature
they did not exceed those last described, but they were of infinitely
greater personal beauty, and appeared in our eyes scarcely less lovely
than the general representations of angels by the more imaginative
schools of painters. Their social economy seemed to be regulated by
laws or ceremonies exactly like those prevailing in the Vale of the
Triads, but their works of art were more numerous, and displayed a
proficiency of skill quite incredible to all except actual observers. I
shall, therefore, let the first detailed account of them appear in Dr.
Herschel's authenticated natural history of this planet."
[This concludes the Supplement, with the exception of forty pages
of illustrative and mathematical notes, which would greatly enhance
the size and price of this work, without commensurably adding to its
general interest.--_Ed. Sun._]
APPENDIX.
THE MOON AS KNOWN AT THE PRESENT TIME.
"Ye sacred muses, with whose beauty fir'd,
My soul is ravish'd, and my brain inspir'd.
Whose priest I am, whose holy fillets wear;
Would you your poet's first petition hear;
Give me the ways of wandering stars to know:
The depths of heav'n above, and earth below.
Teach me the various labours of the moon,
And whence proceed th' eclipses of the sun.
Why flowing tides prevail upon the main,
And in what dark recess they shrink again.
What shakes the solid earth, what cause delays
The summer nights, and shortens winter days."
VIRGIL.
The picture on the title-page is probably the best and minutest view
of the moon, that has ever been laid before the public. Most of our
readers are aware that the mountains and hollows of the moon have
been accurately and thoroughly mapped by astronomers, and baptized
by appropriate names. For the benefit of meritorious students of
astronomical geography, we subjoin the names of all those which
have been christened. At the present season it will amply repay the
possessor of a small telescope to identify the several localities with
the aid of the map.
In olden time the moon was a goddess. Whatever the ignorant mind
of the time was incapable of grasping was supernatural. Thus arose
the pale, chaste Deity of the Night, robed in virgin white, roaming
dreamily under the partial shade of trees, loving to see her fair
image reflected in streams, and shedding a complacent light on tender
meetings. We are not heathens--far from it: but who among us has not
at some time or other paid homage to the Queen of Night[1], and thanked
her for the gentle light which has shown the way to some fair hand.
We say, in blunt scientific terms, that she--or it--is a satellite of
the earth, suspended in her--or its--present position by the contrasted
attraction of the sun and the earth. This is the unromantic version of
the naked fact.
There was a time when the earth was an uncomfortable semi-incandescent
mass, in the act of cooling off for practical purposes. The atmosphere
was tropical throughout the globe. All things were intensely
impregnated--or, as the philosophers say, supersaturated--with carbon.
Between the dry land and the waters there was no division. There was
no ocean, and consequently no continents. All was hot mud, with here
and there a lake or a short river, and here and there a dry, parched,
torrid eminence. In those days there were animals and plants, but no
human beings. Both animals and plants were like the age in which they
flourished--to our notions monstrous. Monsters were the rule, both in
the vegetable and the animated world. Creatures were born, and grew
to sizes which dwarf the elephant. Plants thrust their heads above
the mud, and, in that carboniferous atmosphere, attained heights
which would have towered above the tallest trees of our forests. But
in proportion to the rapidity of their growth was the brevity of
their life; for these were the days of earthquakes and terrestrial
convulsions. Probably no day elapsed without some earthquake or
volcanic eruption.
The light of day was dull and obscured. Masses of opaque matter floated
through the atmosphere as thickly as dust specks float through a ray
of sunlight in a darkened room.[3] The hot air, thick and dull, hung a
listless mist over the face of the earth, which was even then almost
without form and void. When the sun went down, dense darkness covered
the earth. There was no lesser light to rule the night; dim twinklings
in the far distance, hardly piercing the pall which wrapped our planet,
were the only contrasts to the Egyptian blackness of the dark hours.
But the internal fires which sprung from the vitals of the earth
almost supplied the want of a nocturnal luminary. It is probable that
there were but few spots on the globe which were out of view of some
flaming volcano. We count the active volcanoes by integers. When we
have enumerated Etna, Vesuvius, Hecla, Jorullo, Colima, and one or
two others, we have reached the end of our list. In the days of Homer
the volcanoes were counted by scores; in the carboniferous age they
may have, must have, flourished by hundreds and thousands. That vast
incandescent mass, of which the crust only had cooled, kept boiling
up every few hours, and furiously pouring out the vials of its wrath
upon an earth inhabited by transitory creatures. Go where the traveller
may, he will still find traces of this terrible age. That tell-tale
rock--"the trap"--is peculiar to no meridian; and from the Hudson's Bay
territories nearly to Cape Magellan, from Spitzbergen to Borneo, either
this, or some mountain range of volcanic origin, here with scoriæ
disseminated through the more regular formations, there with copper or
gold held in a native state in half-decayed quartz, tell a very legible
story of the time when all the component parts of the earth were in
a fluid state, and were thrown off by the boiling mass beneath as a
kettle throws off froth and scum.
There came a day when the under crust could no longer bear the weight
of the mass which, after being thrown off daily, returned, by the
force of gravitation, to the surface of its parent. A time came when
the incandescent and inchoate planet--if so daring a figure may be
ventured--felt the necessity of unusually strenuous measures. It
gathered all its fiery energies, and mustered all its fearful strength.
The effect was universal, not local. With such bodies distances of
25,000 miles must be trifling, and the earth's meridian--a paltry 8000
miles--not worth mentioning. One can imagine the purpose and effort
being common to the entire molten and raging mass.
It came at last. After throes of inconceivable agony, with a roar and a
convulsion which must have destroyed every living thing then existent
upon the face of the planet, in the midst of general chaos, confusion,
and desolation, the earth relieved itself. It tore from its half-cooled
surface immense masses, and projected them with monstrous force into
space; not on one side alone, but on all. Lumps of earth four and five
miles in thickness, and thousands of miles long and wide, were in an
instant forced upwards with such force as to pass beyond the circle of
the earth's attraction. These various masses, thus launched into space,
soon felt the attraction of each other, and assembled together. They
met, and, agreeably to the sublime law of celestial bodies, remained
suspended in space at the point where the attraction of the earth meets
that of the sun. That other celestial law which forbids the torpidity
of any atom of matter compelled the aggregated mass to revolve, and the
revolution forced the mass into a spherical shape.
Thus the moon came into being. An offshoot from the earth, it pays
homage to its parent by revolving round it, and reflecting back to
it a part of the sun's light during the period when that luminary is
obscured to us. Had the force with which its substance was expelled
from the body of the earth been less, it would have returned to our
surface, just as those fragments of matter called aerolites do at
regular intervals; had that force been greater, it would have entered
upon the vast area which is the domain of the sun, and would have been
attracted to that great cosmical body, and been fused by its intense
heat. It was sent abroad with precisely the force necessary to sustain
it _in equilibrio_ between the earth and the sun, and hence it is "the
lesser light which rules the night."
This is not the only service which it renders us. By its creation it
caused great hollows in the surface of the earth. Into these hollows
the waters which lay on the face of the deep naturally gathered, and
became oceans, lakes, seas, and rivers. The cavities drained the
earth of the moisture which had rendered it unfit for the habitation
of the higher order of vertebrated creatures. Thus by degrees were
formed the great Atlantic and Pacific, the Northern and the Southern
oceans, leaving here and there tracts of cool, dry land for man to
inhabit at the word of his Creator. Nor did the office of the moon stop
here. While it was upheld in space by the attraction of the earth, it
returned the compliment by exercising a reciprocal attraction upon the
waters for which it had created beds. With the beautiful regularity
which is the characteristic of heavenly bodies, it affected them at
uniform intervals, causing the tides to flow and to ebb, and to vibrate
between the spring and the neap flow. Lastly, it relieved the earth
of a vast quantity of superincumbent matter, equal, in fact, to over
one-fiftieth of the whole bulk of the planet. One must imagine the
earth in the condition of a gentleman who has dined copiously, and
whose interior is troubled by an unusual burden; the convulsion which
led to the creation of the moon is similar to the effect of the dose
which the gentleman, if he be wise, will instantly take.
In departing from us, and setting up for herself, the moon forgot some
articles of baggage which were essential to her future comfort and
prosperity. Among these were air and water. How we came by these two
useful commodities it were hard to say.
This is made quite certain by the discoveries of astronomers. Rains,
dews, oceans, lakes, hail, snow, clouds, are all unknown to the moon.
Nothing shields its surface from the burning rays of the sun. Wherever
the light of that fierce luminary penetrates the moon's surface is
incessantly hot.
Of volcanic origin, the moon is true to its descent. It is full of
volcanoes, most of which, however, perhaps from a conviction of the
uselessness of further action--there being nothing to destroy, and
no one even to see their explosions--are now silent and torpid. But
they wrought out their destiny so long and so faithfully, that the
surface of the moon is frightfully disfigured and uneven. Switzerland
is a prairie compared to the smoothest part of the moon's surface. It
is nothing but incessant mountain and hollow. Lunar Alps and Rocky
Mountains intersect every few miles of the surface. The Himalayas
would be unnoticed among the gigantic ranges which ornament the lunar
superficies. And the projections, mighty as they are, are but trifling
in comparison with the hollows. It would seem as though the moon, with
apish weakness, had tried to imitate the earth in throwing off space
for rivers and oceans--forgetting that it contained no water to fill
the cavities. Astronomers have made the most extraordinary discoveries
in reference to these lunar hollows. Some of them appear to be about
fifty miles deep, and a hundred miles or so wide, with precipitous
sides; Mitchell has vividly described these terrible places. Those who
have looked over a precipice a few hundred feet in depth may perhaps
form some rude idea of what it must be to gaze down into a hole fifty
miles deep--so deep that the bottom would almost escape the eye, were
there an intervening atmosphere--a great, monstrous cave, with no
vegetation either on the borders or on the top, or on the sides or on
the bottom; no life of any kind, not even, the least sound, to break
the endless monotony of silence--everywhere dull, warm scoriæ, lava,
and stones of volcanic origin. But even these are the smallest of the
lunar cavities. Latterly, acute astronomers, with improved instruments,
have gazed into holes in the moon's surface, and estimated them to be
no less than two hundred and fifty and three hundred miles deep, with
fissures in them through which the sunlight penetrated.
Fancy the scene! Well may it have been termed the abomination of
desolation. Surely this fair earth, with all its gloomy places and all
its dreary scenes, contains nothing so overwhelming in its terrible
despair as the moon. And who, gazing at its mild white face as it
emerges from the cover of a cloud, would deem it so sad and desolate a
sphere?
There are no "men in the moon," There cannot be, for they could not
exist without air and water. 'Tis a pity, for the sight of this planet
of ours, thirteen times the size which the moon appears to us, as fair,
and bright, and shining as our nightly luminary, would be a sight worth
seeing.
Science has made such progress, and common sense has so far kept pace
with it, that the old idea that this was the only inhabited sphere in
the universe is now completely exploded. There is no reason to believe
that our planet is the only one in our solar system which is devoted
to a useful career; nor is there any ground for imagining that our sun
is the only one, of the myriad of suns we see every night, which gives
light, and heat, and happiness to human creatures. On the contrary,
the supreme wisdom of the Deity affords a fair presumption that this
little planet of ours is but as a grain of sand among the worlds which
have been created for the glory of God, and that each planet after its
kind is fitted for the habitation of creatures whose office and purpose
it is to thank and bless Him for their existence. Moons may be an
exception for a time.
Of all this we know but little, and can only conjecture vaguely. As
science advances, we may have telescopic instruments so superior to
those now in use that we shall be able to decipher the moon's surface
as plainly as a distant shore on our own planet. But visits thither
must ever remain as impossible as they are at present. The story of
Hans Pfall will remain a brilliant imagination to the end of time.
"In consequence of the moon having no atmosphere, or but a very thin
one, all celestial objects must be seen with very great distinctness.
The earth, when full, appears to an inhabitant of the moon thirteen
times as large as the moon appears to us; that is, its diameter is
about 3-6/10 times as large as our apparent lunar diameter. It is
always on the same part of the heaven, when seen from the same part of
the moon. M. Quetelet, in his _Astronomie Elémentaire_, Paris, 1826, a
very good work, which ought to be translated, has the following remarks
on the appearance of the earth at the moon, which we would rather quote
than vouch for, though they may possibly be well founded.
"Our vast continents, our seas, even our forests are visible to them;
they perceive the enormous piles of ice collected at the poles, and the
girdle of vegetation which extends on both sides of the equator; as
well as the clouds which float over our heads, and sometimes hide us
from them. The burning of a town or forest could not escape them, and
if they had good optical instruments, they could even see the building
of a new town, or the sailing of a fleet."
The lunar day, as we shall afterwards see, is equivalent to our actual
month of 29½ days: though the rotation of the moon on her axis is
performed in the sidereal month of 27 days 8 hours nearly. Hence the
inhabitant of the moon sees the sun for 14¾ of our days together,
which time is followed by a night of the same duration. Of course the
existence of any animal like man is impossible there, as well on this
account as on that of the want of an atmosphere.
The phases which the earth presents to the moon are similar in
appearance to those which the moon presents to the earth, but in a
different order. Thus, when it is new moon at the earth, it is full
earth at the moon: and the contrary. When the moon is in her first
quarter, the earth is in its third quarter, and so on; while half-moon
at the earth is accompanied by half-earth at the moon.
There is no branch of science better fitted to be made the leading
subject of general instruction than that which relates to the planetary
and sidereal universe. The truths which it reveals are so startling
in their nature, and apparently so far beyond the reach of human
intelligence, that men of high literary name have confessed their
incapacity to understand them, and their inability to believe them.
There are few, indeed, we fear, who really believe that they sojourn
on a revolving globe, and that each day and year of life is measured
by its revolutions. There are few who believe that the great luminary
of the firmament, whose restless activity they daily witness, is an
immovable star, controlling, by its solid mass, the primary planets of
our system, and forming, as it were, the gnomon of the great dial which
measures the thread of life and the tenure of empires. Fewer still
believe that each of the million of stars--those atoms of light which
the telescope can scarcely descry--are the centres of planetary systems
that may equal or surpass our own; and still smaller is the number who
believe that the solid pavement of the globe upon which we nightly
slumber is an elastic crust, imprisoning fires and forces which have
often burst forth in tremendous energy, and are, at this very instant,
struggling to escape--now finding an outlet in volcanic fires--now
heaving and shaking the earth--now upraising islands and continents,
and gathering strength perhaps for some final outburst which may
shatter our earth in pieces, or change its form, or scatter its waters
over the land. And yet these are truths than which there is nothing
truer, and nothing more worthy of our study.