Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1893-01-06
Bes t Existing Maps how More
Than Thirt-twO Thousand
Craters.
That of Copernicus Is About
Fifty-four Miles in
Diameter.
At One Place There Are Perpen-
dicular Walls Two and One
Half Miles High.

writes very interesting article under
the title An Excursion through the
Mountains of the Moon. He SAWS:
The moon is the most faithful at
tendant Of the earth. Her chubby face
Is always turned towards U.S. 1t fire.
quently looks as if she We're stealing a
sly glance at some other star, perhaps
at beautiful Venus, who sails past her
at no great distance; but fear of the
stern mother earth is too great. She
turns her face again, and this timorous
wagging OF the head from side to side
is called the moons libra ton. The con-
sequence of this movement is that we
are familiar with about four-SeyenthS OF
the moons surface, only three seventies
remaining, forever, Il terra incognita TO
us. 1t drives me to Il sort of melan-
choly despair when l hear people sug-
costing that life in the moon may be
different from what it is with us; that
although there is no air or water, and
consequently no creatures of flesh and
blood, there may, nevertheless, be in
telligent beings differently constituted.
If we overthrow the natural, laws, the
fundamental ideas of creation, we sha-
ter at the same time tn epillars of the
logical structure on which all science
rests and everything tunbles down in
confusion together. Nothing then re-
mains but the fevered dreams of an
unrestrained phantasy, gone wild. If
we would get an intelligent idea of
creation, we must recognize, i'll the first
place, that we must proceed by logical
analysis and synthesis; and what the
logical laws are in the spiritual world,
the natural laws are in the material
world. We must regard them as uni
verSal; and indeed we have thousands
on thousands Of direct proofs that in
the remOteSt bounds of space to which
we can penetrate by means Of our opti-
cal instruments there is the same mat
ter, subject to precisely the same laws
us on the earth. We may, then, accept
it as beyond question that the organi-
Zation of the moon was primarily sim
liar to that of our earth. She differs
from us only as the wrinlIed old bag
differs from the blooming maiden. And
on her face than the most withered hag
in the world.
The best existing map Of the noun
tains of the moon shows 32,S56 crater
shaped projections, and astronomers
tell us that a hundred thousand are
brought into view with a telescope of
medium power. This immense body of
prominences On the moons surface is
in strong contrast to the earth which
has very few volcanic craters, and if
they really were all eruptive volcanoes
as has been, perhaps too hastily, as
Srlmed, the moons surface during their
activity would have formed an admir-
But not only does the immense number
Of these so-called moon craters reflect
doubt on their volcanic origin; the dis
propOrionately enormous spread of
some of them is no less opposite to the
view. The moon crater COpernicuS.
which is perhaps the most beautiful
of these structures, presents the appear
ance of a circular wall and has a diam
eter Of more than ninety kilometres
about 81 miles,. The wall rises in one
place almost perpendicular to height
Of 1000 metres "a distance of 13, 123
much higher than the surface of the
feet or IL miles,. The surface of the
enclosed space is fairly level and is
outside of the ring From the surface
of the enclosed space, six cOnicai peaks
rise. to height of about seven hun
dred metres $500 feet, and these
might be regarded as the eruptve cones,
if one adhered to the analogy with the
volcanoes of the earth. But this view is
hardly tenable. Stones projected from
ed arch in their course, and if the cir
cular wall of Copernicus is composed of
matter thrown up from the inclosed
vents, it must have been thrown to q
height ten or twenty times as great as
the distance from the vent to the wall,
say at least 400 kilometres Us miles,.
This is uncomfortable, and we are
driven to some other explanation.
Many explanations have been adj
vanced to account for the origin of the
mountains of the moon. Faye, for eX-
ample, a French astronomer, who De
came famous through the accidental
discovery of periodic comet, and who
since then has INDUCED in new theories
on the origin of everything from sun
spots to the universe, has given us his
theory of the formation of the noun
tains of the moon in precise detail, but
the arigin Of the great Copernicus is
still unexplained. These regular circu-
lar walls could not have originated in
any force operating from within. If
the glowing molten mass within sought
a vent it would rupture the crust and
form great riffs radiating from the
centre. There are, in fact, some such
radiations visible on the moon, but they
are of rare occurrence. The principal
radiating system starts from a great
crater. Tycho, and extends over the
moons surface; and we can well con-
ceive that the crust of the moon at
one time cooling and contrasting upon
the moten mass within was ruptured,
and the riffs filed with the molten
mass. This inner material is more bril-
liant than that on the moons surface,
and under favorable conditions of light
is visible to us now, although it has
long been cold.
But, as already said, the circular tow
ers Of the moon are not to be accounted
for by any theory of force working from
below. One anonymous hypothesis
founder attributes the structures SIM
ply to the action of meteorites. Enor-
mons masses OF this sort fell on the