The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1873-05-17
The Moon.

OF course we saw the eclipse last Sunday night,
and in spite of occasional passing tradewind clouds
we had an excellent view OF the thought-produc-
ing phenomenon. AS the dark shadow of the earth
gradually crept over the shining face of the - full
orbed mOon,'; it was a fitting occasion to think and
speak reyerently OF Him who uphOlds the worlds
aud guides them unerringly through space. 1t was
a time to tell the little ones of the family all about
Luna, and the queer beliefs that anciently prevailed
about her. Conant, in a late number OF Harper'S
Magazine, discourses interestingly on this topic, a
portion of which we will paraphrase here.
Among the illusions swept away by modern sci
ence was the pleasant fancy that the moon was a
habitable globe, like the earth, its surface diversi-
fed with seas, lakes, continents, and islands, and
varied forms of vegetation. Theologians and
savants gravely discussed the probabilities of its
being inhabited by a race of sentient beings, with
forms and faculties like our own, and even pro-
pounded schemes for opening communication with
them, in case they existed. One OF these was to
construct on the broad highlands of Asia a series
of geometrical figures on a scale so gigantic as to
be visible from our planetary neighbor, on the sup
position that the moon people would recognize the
object, and Immediately construct similar figures in
reply. Extravaganza and absurd as it may appear
in the light of modern knowledge, the establish
ment of this Terrestrial and Luna Signal Service
Bureau was treated as a feasible scheme, although
practical difficulties, which so often keep men from
making fools of themselves, stood in the way of
actual experiment; but the discussion was kept up
at intervals, until it was discovered that if there
were people in the moon they must be able to live
without breathing, or eating, or drinking. Then it
ceased. There can be no life without air. Beau
tiiul to the eye of the distant observer, the moon is
a sepulchral orb-a world of death and silence. No
vegetation clothes it's vast plains of stony desola-
ton, trsversed by monstrous crevasses. broken by
enormous peaks that rise like gigantic tomb-stones
into space; no lovely forms of cloud Roat in the
blackness of its sky. There daytime is only night
lighted by a rayless sun. There is no rosy dawn
in the morning, no twilight in the evening. The
nights are pitch dark. In daytime the solar beams
are lost against the jagged ridges, the sharp points
of the rocks, or the steep sides of profound abysses:
aud the eye sees only gTotesque shapes relieved
against fantastic shadows black as INK, with none
of that pleasant graduation and diffusion of light,
none of that subtle blending of light and shadow
which make the charm of a terrestrial landscape.
A faint conception of the horrors of a luna day
may be formed from an illustration representing a
taken in the moon in the center Of the
region of Aristarcbus. There is no
color, nothing but dead white and black. The
rocks reflect passively the light of the sun; the
craters and abysses remain wrapped in shade; fan
tastic peaks rise like pbantoms in their glacial GEM
etery; the stars appear like spots in the blackness
of space. The moon is a dead world; she has no
atmosphere.