Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1871-08-10

or the extlnguisher !. christmas
paper cornucopia you had las.
full of sugar-plums.
1t is, then, under this great cone
shaped shadow you sleep every night, and
while you are dreaming it passes swiftly
over your bed, lifting its mighty head up,
up farther thaa your thoughts can follow
it, beyond the pathway of the distant
moon.
THAT reminds me to tell you, what l
dare say you have already guessed, that
the moon In its regular travels round us
sometimes passes through the earth's
night shadow, and becomes what We call
'ecllpsed,' or hidden. This happens about
twice year. 1t is not often entirely
ridden, however, but more frequently
passes somewhere across the edge of the
great shadow, so that we can see a large
part OF IFS round, bright face, and may
watch the eclipse passing slowly over one
side OF it, until, like shining silver bub-
BILE, ii floats out again into the light. You
are not to suppose, though, that the moon
is really bubble. BY no means. 1t is a
round, solid earth, as solid as our own,
and probably made of very much the same
sort OF rock, only it is not nearly SO large.
1t would take fifty moons to make such an
earth as this, and We have about four
teen times as much room on the outside
Of our world as the little people in the
moon--if there are any there-have upon
theirs
The sun, you know is bright with its
own light, as a fire is, but the moon, just
like our earth, is bright only while the
sun shines upon it. Therefore, when we
are between it and the sun, or, what is
saying the same thing in other words,
when ii comes into our shadow, it is in
the dark, and cannot be seen. That is
what We mean when We say that the moon
shines by reflected light.
"The moon is the earth's little daughter,
and, like her mother, receives daylight
from the sun, and has a conical shadow,
or night of her own. Her day lasts for a
whole fortnight, and SO does her night.
That is very long day and night for such
little world, is it notS
Sometimes all the bright daylight side
is turned toward us, and then we say the
moon is full ; sometimes all the dark night
side, and then we say there is no moon.
When tiny narrow strip of the bright
side begins to peep round again, we call it
the new moon.
what fine, great moon, fourteen
times as large as ours, this earth must
be for the good folks there Only, as it
happens that the same half of the moon
is always turned this way, the people on
the other half If they want to have look
at us, must take long journey in order
to enjoy that pleasure.
Sometimes we appear full moon to
them,t and sometimes new, as our moon
does To us but instead of rising in the
east and setting in the west, we alway 8
seem TO stand still, just in the same pat
of the sky. The people who live in the
center Of that half Of the moon which is
turned toward US see directly over their
heads all the time.
IL would tell you a great deal more
about the sun, and the moon, and the
stars, and the Garth, and will soon, If you
like TO hear, but not now, for, see while
We have been talking, the great earth,
shadow has crept silently over us, and is
pressing down your sleepy eyelids.--
Cht(dr6n' s Hour.