Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1882-07-07
WHOLE NO. 1925.
The Changes Of the Moon.

In one Of the most whimsical Of his
essays Charles Lamb speaks of the utter
confusion of mind which would result
If, on getting out of bed some morning
and looking towards the East, where we
had always been accustomed to see the
sun rise, we should find the moon COM
ing up, 60 attended by the eleven stars"
while far up in the sky the disc of the
sun should appear, white and ghostly.
rs the moon waning in the early dawn.
Probably the majority of US would not
at first.be willing to trust to the evidence
lies directly to help us out of the diff
Guilty. But if our wives and children
with one voice declared that what We
saw was real, fear and apprehension of
coming calamity would take the place Of
distrust in our senses, for we could not
help believing that what we saw was but
the fOrerunner of changes in the econo-
my of the solar system of the immedi-
ate, to say nothing of the final results of
which none could speak with CONT
dence." Should we find upon "sally-
ing abroad that the people in the street
all stood gazing at the sky, and. too.
had ''lost all confidence in the universe"
we should certainly believe that we had
taken leave of our senses IN toto. and
that the whole world had gone mad with
us. But If then, as Lamb continues,
we should begin to find that we were
much lighter than we had ever been be-
fore; that we bounded along the streets
instead of walking, and that ponderable
bodies had lost their Old-time weight, So
that hawkerS' carts and the stalls of
green grocers were swept out of the way
like so many feathers. we should be re-
duced to tho 'extremity of hunor" on
one side of our nature. while on the
other we should be painfully rejecting
upon the probable result of what would
now seem apparent-that we were re-
sedng from the sun, and might soon be
left in ''lightness, comparative darkness
and certain eclipse
The truth probably is that should such
~ aspect of nature ever be put on ~
t,Aat which Lamb has taken for the basis
of his sketch, We should not act at all in
the way which the most whimsical Of
English bumOrists has here described.
How We should comport ourselves under
such circumstances it is probably out of
the reach of any mortal to say. but it
seems extremely probable that before
long the solar system may be called up
on to give an account OF itself which will.
if not Immediately to US all, vet to the
scientific world, be most interes:ing-we
do not say alarming g-because it is en-
tirely unprecedented. Several German
and at least three English astronomers-
among whom Professor Ball is to be
counted-have of late told us that physi-
cal changes have been going on in the
moon which will cause physicists to re-
cast their opinions in regard to the con-
dition of that body. The first astronomer
who called attention to this fact was
Professor Heilbronn, of Bonn, who has
discovered great caverns in our satellite
which certainly could not have existed
two months ago. He notes particularly
two of these fissures-one at the base of
the TychO Brahe, and another, which
has apparently been caused by the dis
placement of rocks near the crater of
what is probably one Of the Oldest OF
lunar volcanoes. Up through another
crater has been thrust column OF rock
of enormous height-enormous when We
consider the moons size-and there are
also evidences, obtained by means Of the
spectroscope which has hitherto given
indications simply of solar light reflected
from the moon, that volcanic forces are
now at work in a planet which has hith-
erto been held to be utterly lifeless SO far
as chemical action and any form of en-
ergy except gravitation is concerned.
1t is evident that speculation in regard
to these phenomenal appearances is as
yet premature. Possibly they are con-
nected with general cosmical changes.
such as those which Professor Higgins
long ago pointed out when he showed that
the whole solar system is in motion to-
ward certain stellar systems. Possibly
they may be connected with recent
changes in the sun; but as yet Ill II in
the darh.-London Spectator.