The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1874-10-04

W8fkS were as f0r as nifty or sixty niles away
from the ori6ce of eruption, on account OF
the distance to which the lava was shot under
the relatively slight restraining power Of
gravitation in the moon-wLich IS only
s:xth part of the same force upon the earth
and they were universally of a regular circu-
lar form, because the erupted jet was scat
tered to the same distance in all directions
around the jet, as water is scattered from the
vents of dome-shaped fountain, and be-
cause there was no wind, under any circum-
stances, to divert or distort the regularity OF
the shower.
Mr. Nasmyth therefore holds that the best
developed forms Of the lunar craters repre-
sented volcanic force IN its purest state and III
its highest perfection, and that the moon Is
thus virtually a model Of the radical opera
tons Of volcanic processes, devoid of the dis
turbng and masking effects brought about by
water and air, and presenting to the conteln-
plation Of telescope observers very much
what the solid foundations of TIE earth would
show if it were cleared of its water groovlngs
and eurrowings, its water-formed sedimentary
,edt ,ad IL o,e,.lls ard rivers.
M. Nasm, this conviction is that the moon
mad arrived, even long ages preceding the
earth pre-human history, at the stage OF I'M
broken and Interchangeable rest. The only
forces which appear now to be at work ID the
great lunar wilderness affecting movement
and change are the monthly vicissitudes OF
temp erature, and the consequent expansion
and contraction to which the surface solids
are subjected, as they pass from the fourteen
terrestrial days Of unremitting and never
clouded sunshine to the fourteen days OF
equally uninterrupted. deprivation'o of the sun S
rays It has been estimated that towards tn e
end Of its long scorching day of three hun
dred hours the surface Of the moon must have
been heated to something more than twice the
temperature OF boiling water, probably about
to the tUslng heat of tia; and that towards the
end of its equally long three hundred hours OF
night, if must have been coole / pretty well to
the temperature Of inter-steilar space, which
is 30 degrees lower than the zero of Fahren-
heits scale.
No vegetable organization could exist in
the absence of moisture and where the usual
monthly range Of temperature is nearly four
times the differences between freezing ice and
boiling water, nor could any form of living ami
nal maintain the conditions Of even the low
est kind OF vitality in an atmosphere so rare
that it could not sustain the column of the
barometer the Smallest fractional par. OF an
inch.
) Mr.. Nasmyth is an earnest believer in
Hersche and Lsplace's comprehensive theo-
~ OF the formation OF liquid spheres by the
c condensation of nebulous vapor. AS corol-
larry to this now generally accepted view, it is
surlnised that the larger and outer members OF
our planetary system are spheres in which
small solid nuclei are enveloped in deep liquid
oceans or atmospheres, that have lost, in the
further process Of cooling, all shining power,
although they still scatter radiant heat into
space, and SO perform the Subordinate fIrc-
ton Of heat-suns
To this view our own pleasant word is but
q more finished production i'll which the still
molten, and yet radiant, central nucleus has
been smut up IN a thick, cold shell of consoli-
dated substances and the moon is the ulti-
mate and final issue OF the same process, in
whicA the cold, solid crust has extended tC
the very core, and all has become q chilled
cindery mass, in which the outer pittings and
trettings are the only vestiges that remain tc
tell OF the fiery ordeal which has been passed
through. Condensed from TIE EliaJalrgh Re
1,ie,r for .J,in