The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1851-02-20
From the Friend Of Youth.
A CHAPTER ON THE MOON FOR SCHOOL-BOYS
and SCHOOLGIRLS.
BY MARY IRVING.

You never made quite so amusing blunderr,
perhaps but have you not looked up to 1t
many times in curious kind OF wonder -
Sometimes il would seem to toss tiny cres-
cent on the clouds like small gided boat upon
ocean waves. On other nights it looked down
upon you, full and round as your mothers
eve; and you almost thought it the visible eye
of your Father in Heaven, kindly beamng on
you through the night-slumbers.
You are older and wiser now you know
for am writing to those whose teachers have
told them something of geography and astron-
omy-that the moon is a vast world, not I'M
like our own in shape, though much smaller
in size.
You know that il revolves around this earth
like ball whirled around your hand by
string. You know-perhaps-th II has no
| light of its own its mountains and rocks are
| dark like those of our world, and all It's golden
| light is reflected sunshine +, as a looking glass
sometimes gives you reflected lamplight when
you cannot see the lamp itself.
You must often have watched the " man IN
the moon," with his grim, dstresstul face
! slowly peering above the trees. You may
| have been told that those spots which so singu-
| larly mimic eyes, nose, and mouth, are noun
| tanS of the moon; not those which you find
on the map of Africa, but mountains on as
well as Of the moon.
You have learned all this but did you ever
seize the moon, 10 bring 1t within hundred
miles Of you, to examine its wonderful noun
tains and strange valleys? "Seize the moon !!
Who ever heard Of such thing2"
Not by reaching up the hand into the starry
sky. TO be sure; but by pointing towards it a
certain wonderful instrument, which has such
power as old magiclans never dreamed of.
mean telescope. This is long tube, in which
magniiying lenses GLASSES which make objects
seem larger) are arranged. When this tube is
pointed, like huge brass cannon, at the moon,
If YOU Fvx <;s1r eye TO the glass at the end of
it, you will see the moon so near you that you
are almost tempted to take a jump into one OF
its wild looking ravines A distinguished as
tronomer, who has charge of one Of these won
derful instruments, says, 81 could almost seem
to touch the surface of the planet with cane
twenty yards long"
This same astronomer, who has such spell
by which to bring down the moon into his OBJ
servatory at will, has been kind enough to give
a long and particular account of his intimate
acquaintance with it to many little boys and
girls in this place have seen them sitting
with eyes that had forgotten to wink, drinking
into their ears his wonderful descriptions and
do wish that all my little readers--and large
ones, too, should find any-could have shared
in their eager listening.
He tells us that these curious mountains are
often four or five miles in height, rising abrupt
ly from level, circular plains, on which they
cast their long, peaked shadows. There is
something singular about these mountain
shadows of the moon. If you could jump upon
one of those moon plains, seemingly so near
you, and walk along its level, when you came
to the edge Of the shadow, you would sudden
ly find yourself quite in darkness.
How's this I" you would be likely to ex-
claim, rubbing your eyes, and staring above
and about you. "The shadows on earth do
not hide all the light, surely"
You would grope along to the farther verge
of the long, cane-like shade, and then as sud
denly step out beneath the brightest light you
ever tried to look upon. The reason of this
brilliancy of sunshine and OF this darkness o
shadow is the same. 1t is, that the moon ha:
no atnlOsphere-that is, air with watery vapors
clouds, Sc, rising into 1t. O,r atmosphere
reflects the light of the sun to us, even wher
we are in the shade, because every particle Il
like tiny transparent mirror. But the moor
is found to have no atmosphere, or at least ST
little that not a ray of sunshine is reflected int
its shade, except from the surface of the earth
OF course, as there is no atmosphere, there
must be little or no water on the moon Tor, l
there were, the sun would soon draw 1t up int
vapor. And, in truth, one cannot ind an
rivers, seas, or oceans, upon 1t, not even ONT
solitary pond There is one spot which look.
like the bed Of great lake from which th'
water might have been drawn off. but we cal
find none in it at present.
| could tell YOU much more OF this wonder
| ful world above us, but must not make my
chapter long enough to tire you. One only
thought will speak Of, which must often have
come to your mind. Are there beings will
human souls on that globe so like our own
We cannot certainly know, of course, but W.
cannot discover on it anything which the hanC
of man could have made-any city, monument
or the like If beings inhabit that world, ont
would imagine that they must be withou
lungs, for how could they breathe without ar
atmosphere? How could they live without {
drop of water to cool their burning lips ant
how can the moon itself be anything but grea
barren, parched ball, unsprinkled by drop o
rain or dew}
These are questions which the wisdom even
Of the astronomer cannot answer Since ou
Maker was able TO create man for the earth, h
certainly could have created beings to mhabl
the moon, with bodies perfectly fitted for such
strange sphere. If there are such embodied
spirits there, what sight must meet their eye:
night after night, as our earth. mammoth
moon to them, comes sailing slowly up thel
always cloudess sky! 1t may be that they
too, have invented telescopes, and spy at us a
we spy at them.
How little we can know of each other, ant
each others world. now! But when we go Il
study in the school of Heaven--whch all wh'
become Christ's willing scholars on earth will
surely dove shall not only wonder at, bu
kno,c all that is wonderful and strange, no
only on this glttering sister sphere, but on al
the thousand upon thousand worlds that SWEEP
above our heads in the skies of the starlit night
NEVER GwE Kick FOR A HT.--I Learned
a good lesson when | was a little girl, says
lady. One frosty morning was looking on
of the window into my fathers barn yard
where stood many cows, oxen, and horses
waiting to drink. The cattle all stood very still
and meek, till one Of the cows, in attempting 4
| turn round, happened 10 hit her next neighbor
whereupon the neighbor kicked and hit another
In FIVE minutes the whole herd were kickin:
each other with fury. My mother laughed
and said, " See what comes of kicking wheI
you are hit" Just so have seen one eros
word set whole family by the ears some frost,
morning. Afterwards, If my brothers or my
self were little irritable, she would say, "Tak
care, my children remember how the fight II
the barn-yard began. Never return kick 10
a HIT and you will save yourself and others
great deal of trouble"
The FARMER AND THE Fox.--A farmer hat
discovered that fox came along beam IN tn
night to seize his poultry. He accordlngl,