OF THE ESSENCE OF THE MOON.
Anaximander affirms that the circle of the moon is nineteen times
bigger than the earth, and resembles the sun, its orb being full of
fire; and it suffers an eclipse when the wheel turneth,—which he
describes by the divers turnings of a chariot-wheel, in the midst of it
there being a hollow replenished with fire, which hath but one way of
expiration. Xenophanes, that it is a condensed cloud. The Stoics, that
it is mixed of fire and air. Plato, that it is a body of the greatest
part earthy. Anaxagoras and Democritus, that it is a solid, condensed,
and fiery body, in which there are champaign countries, mountains,
and valleys. Heraclitus, that it is an earth covered with a cloud.
Pythagoras, that the body of the moon was of a nature like a mirror.