Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1883-08-01
In the Mountains OF the Moon.

a powerful telescope furnished Win
prism eyepiece, he seems to be sus-
pended in mid air and looking down
upon the lunar plains and mountains
from an enormous height. The fall
ing away of the surface toward the
edges of the great ball sometimes pro-
duces the sensation that is experience
ed in standing on the brink of a
giddy precipice. If the magnifying
power used is 500 diameters, the eff
feet is about the same as if the obser-
yer we're in balloon 500 miles above
the surface of the moon. Below him
lie mountains greater than Mount
Blanc and Chimborazo, looking no
larger than pebbles. Ancient sea
bottoms are spread beneath him like
smooth floors, dotted here and there
with elevations that may once have
been islands, and surrounded by table
lands, plains, and mountain chains
that show where the old sea-coast was
fiat and marshy, where it was full of
harbors, and where it was iron-bound
and perilous. Great naked plains
stretch out in various direction as
smooth as our prairies, and in other
places there are reaches of billy
country, and then tremendous noun
tain masses. The great typographical
features remain, as in the days when
the moon was young and full of life
like the earth but the coasts are
silent as the mountain peaks, the seas
are empty, the fruitful soil is gone,
all that ancient teeming life has van
ished, and the whole land is void of
air. 1t is only the rocky skeleton of
a dead world, and a picture of what
our earth will be hundreds of millions
of years hence.
1t is this last consideration-that
the moon furnishes us a sort of proph-
etc page wherein the earth's future
can be read-which makes the study
Of lunar scenery only less interesting
than it would be if our telescopes re-
vealed to us cities and cultivated fields
and all the evidences of mans pres
ence in the moon.
The scenery of the moon is not only
wonderful, but exceedingly beautiful,
when viewed from the lofty perch that
the observer with a telescope seems to
occupy. This is especially true of the
mountains. There being no air on
those rocky heights, there is no grad
alton of light and the shadows are alb
solutely black. Therefore, night and
day confront one another without any
intervening twilight. If one could
stand upon a lunar mountain, he
might be in the full blaze of the sur
on the summit, while ten feet below
all would be buried in the blackes
night. The scene recalls the Plague
of Darkness that was sent upon Egyp
when the habitations of the Israelite'
were filled with light, while the adj
joining lands of the Egyptians were
walled up in night. The effect Of
this sharp contrast of light ant
shadow in the moon is wonderfully
beautiful. A chain of mountains
just at the edge of the illuminated
portion lies under the telescope pictur
ed in silhouette upon the adjacen
plain by the long shadows that are a
sharp in outlines as if cut from blacl
paper. Yet more beautiful are thu
circular mountains, or craters, tina
are the characteristic features of luna
scenery. Some of these are forty O.
fifty miles in diameter, and in tn
center, of the fiat floor enclosed b,
the ring.mountain rise one or NOR,
high peaks. The effects of the ligb
and shade among these craters are al
most endless in diversity.
With good three-inch telescope
, and a little practice in the management
of the magnifying powers, one ma.
easily see all the famous mountains o
the moon, and most of the strange
looking objects that have at differen
times been taken for Notifications
roads, and other works of man. There
are a number of excellent maps o
, the moon, by whose aid every conspic
, uous object may be recognized. The
=, point of greatest interest to the OBJ
: server is the long, jagged line, called
the Termination, that marks the sharI
, division between day and night. L
you watch that line for an hour OF
, two you will be astonished at thu
changes that have taken place under
your eye. You will see the sunshine
creeping down the steep inner side o.
, a ringed mountain, until the floor Of
the vast basin, which had before beer
perfectly black, looking like a hole
right through the moon, is reached
and lighted up, while the rocky hank'
of the central peak, or cluster o.
peaks, come into view, and begin t.
: cast long, spiry shadows over the era
/ ter floor. A lofty mountain, whose
a,,,,,,,;t .,;I,1oJ hy tho suuliohf has