The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-04-19
FACTS ABOUT THE MOON.

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Prof, G., A., Young Skaters some POpulnr
SuperstitiOns
Prof. G. A. Young gave all interesting
lecture on the moon last evening in the as
Economical course which is being conducted
under auspices of the University Extension
at Cooper union, saws the New York Times.
The audience was attentive throughout the
professors rapid summary of the peculiari-
ties OF our satellite, and looked with inter-
est on the views of the moons surface pro-
duced from raised maps photographed n
used as s~tereopticon slides.
The moon. in the first place. has nothing
whatever to do, the lecturer said, with the
changes in our weather. he had known
some farmers in the west who would never
plant a root CROP except on the wane
of the moon, while a growine-up
crop, like wheat or other gain, he would
always insist on planting when the moon
was waxing. These notions, az we'll as
those held by some sea captains that the
wind would blow for a week from the quar-
ter in which the change of the moon took
place, were, he declared, without the slight
est foundation.
The moon was an insignificant body in
herself. 1t was her proximity to the earth
that gave her astronomical Importance. At
the same time her position was unique
among satellites. She was by far the larG-
est in proportion to her planet of twenty or
more satellites in the solar system, being
no other satellite exceeded one-one-
thousandth of the weight of its planet.
In the pecnlier motions taken by the
moon there were certain elements which,
the professor said, the law Of gravitation
might not fully account for. Astronomy
ratio provision. and would reach the field
where such elements of uncertainty would
creep in as the effect of the human
will. Speaking with exactitude, for in
stance, a man could not build a tall build
ing on the surface of the earth without
frightening the day by the change in the
position of matter involved. Such changes
as this, when accumulated through long
periods, must produce effects that would
make the astronomical problem a very diff
fcult one-in fact, an incompatible one
some day.
The heat that the moon sends had been
measured, he said, and found to be 1-16O,OO O
of that sent by the sun, while the light was
100000 Of the sur light. The ''earth
shine" if we could observe it from the sur
face of the moon, was fourteen times as
brilliant as that we now saw from the
moon, and from a surface that was about
foua times ne as large eSh as h the fall i'm noon y ! es-
flected back from the moon to MS slightly,
rendering just visible that part of the moon
in the shadow at the time Of the new moon.
The moon, said the professor, had no at
mosphere to speak of. Its surface, as shown
by the slides, was a mass of circular volcanic
craters of peculiar formation. but rent by
mysterious assures which started from the
crater of Tycho in all directions like the
streaks on the skin of an apple. These
assures were about half a mile in width,
and extended into the body of the moon
nobody knows how far. They cut through
craters and mountain chains in straight
lines, and their explanation was not yet.
Some had attributed them to the congela-
tion of the central mass like water frozen
in a glass globe. Bits of the mountain
scenery of the moon we're thrown on the
curtain and seemed very unattractive,
though evidently grand in their very ugli-
ness.