Wichita eagle., 1890-03-02

II
! human race from the very start, as was thu
beautifully expressed By Virgil 1900 year
| ago:
Ye sacred muses. with whose beauty fir'd,
| Ny soul is ravish d. and my brain inspir'd-
Whose priest am, whose holy filless wear;
Would you your poet first petition hear;
Give me the ways of wandering stars TO knoye
The depths of heav'n above. and earth beiog,
Teach me the various labors of the moon,
| And whence proceed tn ecLpses of the sun
Why flowing tides prevail upon the main.
And in what dark recess they shrink So ain
What shakes the solid earth. what cause delay.
The summer nights, and Shovtens winter days
And, similarly. through all these year!
fanciful writer's have played upon this long
ing, the result being such productions a:
1.-The Arabian Nights" Sir Thomas Mores
Utopia" Bishop Berkeleyis ADVENTURES OF
Signor Gaudentio Di Lucca,' Swift'S ''Gul,l
ver's Travels" De Foes Robinson Crusoe'
and Lord Erskine's "Armata,n besides nu
merous others of a similar character. And
as the moons surface has naturally been ss
lected as the scene for vagrant fancy &c
diSport itself, il is well to aGd here few
actual facts on that luminary.
OF volcanic origin, the moon is full CT vol
canoes, which, however, perhaps from con-
viction of the useleSsneSS of further action
there being nothing TO destroy, and no one
even TO see their expioSions-are now silent
and torpid. But they wrought out their des-
tiny so long and 50 faithfully, that the sur
face of the moon is frightfully disfigured aud
uneven Switzerland Is prairie compared
to the smoots2est part OF the moons surface
II is nothing but inceSSant mountain and hol-
low Lunar Al S and Rocky mountains inter-
sect every few miles OF the surface. The Him
alavs would be unnoticed among the gigantic
ranges which ornament the lunar superficieS.
And the projections, mighty as they are, are
but trifing In comparison with the hollows.
IL would seem as though the moon. with
apish weakness had tried To initiate the
earth in throwing off space for rivers and
oceans-forgetting that 1t contained no water
to fill the cavities. Astronomers have made
the most extraordinary discoveries in refer
ence TO these lunar hollows. Some of them
appear to be about fifty miles deep, and
hundred miles or so wide, with PERCEPTIONS
sides
There are no linen IN the moon" There
cannot be, for they could not exist withou.
air and water. IT'S y pity, for the sight OF
this planet of ours, thirteen times the size
which the moon appears to US, as fair, and
bright, and shining as our nightly luninary,
would be sight worth seeing. This article,
being a melange OF science and fiction, but
still aiming TO direct the reader towards the
sublime, cannot close more appropriately
than with that eloquent passage of DR..
Thomas Chalmers on the telescope and micro
scope:
The one led me TO see system i'll every
star. The other leads me TO see a world in
ba hot nix
mighty globe, with the whole burden of its
people, and of its countries, is but grain of
sand on the high field of immensely The
other teaches me that every grain Of sand
may harbor within it the tribes and families
of busy population. The one told me of
the insignihcance Of the world tread upon.
The other redeenls it from all its insigniti-
canoe; for it tells me that in the leaves OF
every forest, and i'll the flowers of every gar
den, and in the waters Of every rivulet, there
are worlds teening with life, and number
less are the giorieS of the armament.
1.-THE one has suggested to me that beyond
and above all that Is visible to man there may
lie fields OF creation which sweep in1neasura-
bly, along and carry the impress of the Al
mighty's hand to the remotest scenes of the
universe. The other suggests 10 me that
within and beneath all that minutepoSs which
the aided eve of man has been able 10 explore
there may lie O. region of lnviSlbleS, and that,
could we draw aside the mysterious curtain
which shrouds 1t from our senses, we might
there see theatre OF as many wonders as as
has unfoided; n universe within the
Of point so small 20 elJSde all the
powers Of the microscope, but where the WON
der working God finds room for the exercise
of all his attributes, where he can raise an
other mechanism of worlds and fill and ami
mate them all with the evidences of his glory"