The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1874-01-29

and, rushing hithsf, viii put Z full stop in
Terrestrial history. This il . sensation
worthy Of the name. 1t is one of those
delightful Tightening affairs, which one
reads Of, exclaims gracious" and ther
! resigns himself to his fate ~ forgetting
IL.
hut the story of q cracked and disin
tegrating moon, which is made public
through the well-known observatory al
Marseillea. has points about It which, il
| fully assured as to their authenticity, will
arouse good deal of discussion among
astronomers. The story is of Luigi ca
ciatore, q young man with an idea and q
| fortune of about $4,000, a student at the
| Observatory Of Marseilles. This young
man was 10 devoted to his idea that he
heaped his little fortune upon 1t, and with
| q telescope and other instruments set Sail
alone for the solitudeA Of southern seas.
Before efibarking he handed to his old
Instructor d roll Of manuscript upon
which was Inscribed the idea which the
youth pursued and his reason for enter
tanning it at the expense of his time and
fortune. He believed, speaking unscienti-
fically, that the moon was altogether
more cracked than modern astronomers
imagined, and he went to the south seas
alone, that, being there in the region
where passed the deepest shadow he
might see the sunlight peeping through
the cracked moon at the time Of the next
eclipse. He went away to the south even
to Pitcairn's Island, erected his rude OBJ
servatory, gained an old sailor to ASST at
him, and they two, with eyes front and
instruments pointed, awaited the shadow.
1t came. Straight through the rugged
rocks the ragged sunlight shone, as one
sees CLEAN through . crack in the door,
A cry Of joy came from beneath the tele.
scope. The sailor, turned Photograph.
er, caught three negatives of the pene-
trating sunbeam. The youth, with his
idea possessed now proof, to him suffi..
cient, that his belief was not vision, but
scientific reality, and he writes to his
old instructor in France, with all the en-
thusiasm ola boy who has stormed q
snow fort, and with ali the exclamation
points of the successful lover. That
young man saw enough during his lonely
vigil on Pitcairn's island to make him de-
clare 'that cur satellite is not only shell,
and not only shell full of cracks, but
shell that is crushed in upon some por-
tons of its periphery, and shell that is
III" Vi W 1ulu Will b COuSl1uL,
savage, a frightful velocity"
The old Professor at Marseillesscpm.
menting upon the youths. observations
and records which accompanied his letter,
says he has "pushed his discovery very
near to the point of demonstration, and
then the old gentlemen takes hand in
running things with a cracking moon as
fellows: - ~. -
"If the crumbling be connected with
and dependent upon any such intense in.
ternal volcanic action as Luigi seems to
suspect, the final disruption would be so
violent as to project some portions of the
moon sheer out of their orbit and down
upon US with consequences of the most
serious character. Such an impact, if it
were of sufficient force, might in turn
the earth. from. its orbit, send it.
grating on q spiral into the sun, or flung
on hyperbole out into freezing space.
Or the same resistless force might, in fall
ing, crush in the surface Of our own
planet, break through its crust and deluge
us with lava and steam, or suffocate us
with escaping gases from our own subter-
ranean laboratory"
Is not that q beautiful paragraph? The
reader may think that the moon is not the
only cracked thing in existence, but re-
strain the thought, for the above occurs
just over the signature of Yvon De Pom.
tecoulant, of the Observatory of Mar.
seilles.. r -
The thought that the moon may be
of sending heavy shell hither
to avehge the many insults which men
have heaped upon her, is the only one
which presses after the eager Marseillaise
have done their worst. We do not think
it is coming, but has not the moon reason
to make us know that she is not the crazy,
love-sick, unwholesome, cold, metallic
thing which men will not cease to think
her? Has she not had the Jumping in
suits of all the young versemakers of his
tory, flung upon her bright, open counte-
nance? Has she not "kept' straight
lace" for ages, while listening to the rhet-
)rical gum drops of all the lovers since
Jacob began, with fourteen years of moon.
light walks. Has she not listened patient
y to the longest VOWS and then been
blamed because the words were perjury?
Has she not been charged with mingling
harm with the affairs Of men, from the
cutting of a tooth to the SCATTERING of an
intellect? While we do not believe the
moon or any part of it is coming hither
until the great creative spring, now regu-
ulating planetary motions, and ruling
heir gradual approaches, shall have
its perfect work, still we
protest against giving the moon any
further ground for even consequential
damages. We doubt not she is proud
Of her beauty and jealous of the
alteration which it commands. 1t is nei-
Their safe, nor polite, nor wise to call her
; cracked and suicidal termagant.-Utica
~. ~ Herald. .eS.s-: