Curiosities of the Sky

There are sympathetic moods under whose influence one gazes with a certain poignant tenderness at the worn face of the moon; that little "fossil world" (the child of our mother earth, too) bears such terrible scars of its brief convulsive life that a sense of pity is awakened by the sight. The moon is the wonder-land of the telescope. Those towering mountains, whose "proud aspiring peaks" cast silhouettes of shadow that seem drawn with india-ink; those vast plains, enchained with gentle winding hills and bordered with giant ranges; those oval "oceans," where one looks expectant for the flash of wind-whipped waves; those enchanting "bays" and recesses at the seaward feet of the Alps; those broad straits passing between guardian heights incomparably mightier than Gibraltar; those locket-like valleys as secluded among their mountains as the Vale of Cashmere; those colossal craters that make us smile at the pretensions of Vesuvius, Etna, and Cotopaxi; those strange white ways which pass with the unconcern of Roman roads across mountain, gorge, and valley -- all these give the beholder an irresistible impression that it is truly a world into which he is looking, a world akin to ours, and yet no more like our world than Pompeii is like Naples. Its air, its waters, its clouds, its life are gone, and only a skeleton remains -- a mute but eloquent witness to a cosmical tragedy without parallel in the range of human knowledge.

One cannot but regret that the moon, if it ever was the seat of intelligent life, has not remained so until our time. Think what the consequences would have been if this other world at our very door had been found to be both habitable and inhabited! We talk rather airily of communicating with Mars by signals; but Mars never approaches nearer than 35,000,000 miles, while the moon when nearest is only a little more than 220,000 miles away. Given an effective magnifying power of five thousand diameters, which will perhaps be possible at the mountain observatories as telescopes improve, and we should be able to bring the moon within an apparent distance of about forty miles, while the corresponding distance for Mars would be more than seven thousand miles. But even with existing telescopic powers we can see details on the moon no larger than some artificial constructions on the earth. St Peter's at Rome, with the Vatican palace and the great piazza, if existing on the moon, would unquestionably be recognizable as something else than a freak of nature. Large cities, with their radiating lines of communication, would at once betray their real character. Cultivated tracts, and the changes produced by the interference of intelligent beings, would be clearly recognizable. The electric illumination of a large town at night would probably be markedly visible. Gleams of reflected sunlight would come to us from the surfaces of the lakes and oceans, and a huge "liner" traversing a lunar sea could probably be followed by its trail of smoke. As to communications by "wireless" signals, which certain enthusiasts have thought of in connection with Mars, in the case of the moon they should be a relatively simple matter, and the feat might actually be accomplished. Think what a literature would grow up about the moon if it were a living world! Its very differences from the earth would only accentuate its interest for us. Night and day on