The St. Johns herald., 1892-09-01
NEW THINGS IN THE MOON
Photography Reveals Unknown
 Objects on the Planet.
Interesting Discoveries Made by Astron omers Through the Use of the TeIescoPe-Lunar Craters
 and Chasms

COmRl1SucO IuduJ WOuucFlul ESSulCS,
 but nothing perhaps more surprising
 than its discoveries upon the moon, says
 the New York Sun. The moon is SC
 near by and has been so carefully
 studied with the most powerful tele.
 scopes for hundreds of years that the
 astronomers had come to think that they knew pretty much all about it, or
 at least about that face of the moon which is turned toward the earth. But it turns out that photography possesses the power to reveal things upon the moon which cannot be seen by the eye even with the aid of the best of tele- scopes. A careful study of the nega- tives of the moon made with the aid of the great Lick telescope has revealed the existence of many unknown objects there, including great crater mountains and rifts or chasms in the surface of the moon, as well as some of those myste- rious objects which go under the de- scriptive name of bright streaks or rays.
 Near the great crater which we call Copernicus another crater of nearly equal dimensions is shown upon the negatives. although it is absent from the most elaborate maps of the moon, and cannot be seen even with the Lick telescope, except when the magic eye of the camera. instead If the human retina, is applied to look for it. When it is considered that this mysterious crater represents the remains of mountain ring more than fifty miles in diameter it appears exceedingly strange that it should escape detection by the telescope when directed to the moon. and yet be visible upon photograph of the moon. The reason appears to be that the walls of this newly discovered crater were long ago destroyed, being razed by some denuding force nearly to the level of the surrounding surface. It is, consequently, but the remnant of a great crater ring. Even in that coDdi- tion, however, it would be visible to the eye but for the fact that its huge neigh bor, Copernicus, whose walls are still standing to a great height. is surrounded by enormous masses of luminous ma terial, which looks like lava, that must have overfiowed the surrounding coun- 
 of the sun to our eyes with hoverpowering brilliancY. The glare of this broad re- flecting surface, covering hundreds of square miles. is so great as to conceal the comparatively low relief of the broken crater ring.
 In fact, it is not improbable that Copernicus is responsible for the disap- fnv. which doubtless was the predecessor of Copernicus. and once lowered up to an equal height above the surrounding plains. After it had ceased to be an active volcano, and Copernicus had burst forth, the latter probably over whelmed it with torrents of lava, which, filling up the space within its broken walls nearly to the level of their tops, submerged it, so to speak, beneath the new surface thus formed, so that only the summit of its broken walls remains to be caught by the acute vision of the photographic plate.
 In other parts of the moon similar events appear to have taken place, and there are number of large craters, enormously greater than any volcanic craters upon the earth, which seem to have been buried by the outburst of lava from subsequently-formed vol canoes in their neighborhood, so that only portions of their mountain walls now remain visible,
 Another discovery, also arising from inspection of the negatives made with the Lick telescope, relates to the won- derful system of bright rays surround ing the most perfect crater in the moon, Tycho. This extinct volcano is some fifty-four miles in diameter, and is sur rounded on the outer side of its lofty walls by comparatively level region, some twenty-five miles broad, of a much darker hue than that of the crater it. self, or of the surrounding country be- yond. The hundreds of great streaks which radiate from Tycho like the spolzes of wheel, varying in width from ten to twenty or thirty miles, and in length from few miles to nearly two thousand miles, having al- ways appeared, when viewed with telescope alone, to take their rise from the outer edge of the dark rim sur rounding the crater, but the Lick nega- tives show that some of the streaks at least pass through this dark rim and extend clear up to the very walls of the crater. The suggestion that these mys- terious streaks had their origin in the volcanic energy of Tycho when it was still an active crater is strengthened by this evidence that the strcaks actually reach to the crater itself.
 These discoveries are likely to give renewed interest to the study of the moons surface, and while it is perhaps to much to expect that great deal of light will be thrown by astronomical upon the question whether evidences of the present or former ex- istence of life upon the moon can be de- tected from the earth, yet there can be no question that new method of att taclxing the many problems that tstillre- main to be solved concerning the char acter and condition of our satellite has been placed within the reach of astron- omerS.
 Clover Honey.
 An enthusiast on the subject states