The Hawaiian gazette., 1905-09-01
LIFE ON THE MOON
BY waldemar Kaempffert.

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Astronomers who have been con
cerned more with the writing of text
books than with telescope observation
have laid it down that the moon is n
planetary corpse, which hardly repays
study except for the purpose of revel-
ing in the mathematical charms of it's
wonderfully complex motion. Despite
the fact that almost every special stu
dent of the moon--selenologist, he dubs
himself-has noted slight lunar changes
of some kind, and has timidly an
nounced them from time to time, most
of us stiIl cherish the textbook illusion
that the moon is cold, blackened Gin
der, rushing through space-an orb
which may serve to make poets and
other lunatics PLEASANTLY unhappy, but
which is hardly worth much telescope
scrutiny.
Ever since Galileo invented the tele-
scope, we have known that the moon
has its tall mountains and its towering,
tcrraced craters. Although the moon
and the earth were formed of the same
mass, and the life history of the one is
prophetic of the others, these craters,
for chaotic number and startling size,
are quite unlike anything we can dis.
play. At the very least there are two
hundred thousand of them; perhaps
there may be a million, assuming, as
we have a right to assume, that there
are many too small for magnifcation.
Clustered so closely together are they
that Calico, who was an unscientificai.
ly poetic soul in spite of his science
prettily compared them with the eyes
of a peacock's tail.
1t has long been surmised that the
lunar craters are dead, every one OF
them. And now Professor William II
Pickering, a Harvard astronomer wh'
has studied the moon for some twenty
years, and who has not confined him
self to the writing of textbooks, as
sures us that, although most of then
are dead few are still very mucl
alive.
THE MYSTERIOUS CHANGES OF
LIME.
In great plain, centuries ago pic
turesquely miscalled the Sea of Seren
ity, is crater christened Lime, afte
the great Swedish naturalist. Com
pared with the splendid dimensions o
| many similar formations, Lime shrink
| into miserable insignifcance; but al
| though it now measures only paltr,
| three quarters of mile in diameter, i
was not ALWAYS so unpretentions. For
tunately, a fairly complete record o.
its checkered history has been kept TO
| nearly three centuries. On a map o
| the moon made in 1861, forty year
after Calico introduced the telescope
| it appears as rather noticeable crater
Diameters at that time could b
measured only with difficulty. Still
Lime must have been fairly prominen
+, TO have been seen at all,
Toward the latter end Of the eight
eenth century a German selenographe
puts Ii down as ga very small, round
brilliant spot.o When means of ac
curate measurement were devised, Linn
proved to be about four miles in diam
| eter, and rather deep. Measured re
peatedly during the last century, it wa
rarely found to be the same in size b
two surveyors. One scientist placed 1t
diameter at six miles; another at seven
Once it vanished altogether, only to b
| rediseovered as craterlet,' one
quarter of mile across. After that /
! grew in size to mile and half; an'
now it has shrunk again to three-quar
| tiers of mile. Do extinct volcanoe
-change their size so inexplicably'
PLATO AND ITS SHIFTING CONES
Another striking example of crate
| in action is afforded by Plato-a mag
nifcent walled plain considerabl.
larger than the state of Rhode Island
and not unlike huge circus-ring in ap
pearance. Scattered over the darl
| floor of the crater are many volcano
cones, varying in diameter from few
hundred feet to mile. During tn
last twenty-five years that floor ha
been examined infinitely for the pur
pose of fixing the number and position
| of the cones. When the first surve.
was made, thirty-six were counted. A
| second survey revealed thirty-eight
Later forty-two were mapped. When
ever they were plotted, some wer
| found to have shifted about, and SOM
to have grown less distinct or to hav
disappeared entirely, while some wer
discovered that were not marked OF
any map.
If Plato is stone dead, as we hav
I been taught, its twoscore cones show
mercurial elusiveness hardly compati
( BILE with inactivity. Last year Profes
sor Pickering noted in the great crate
! hot IN "a