El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1914-07-11

"craters." and a row OF great depres-
| slons on the north side. One would
! ike to go down into the bottom OF
| those big holes and find out If they
] contain anything of special interest
This. however, brings US three-quar-
IerS OF the way around the edge of the
I dark side Of the moon, and we have an
| opportunity to inspect several fine ring
| plains, conspicuous among which is
Legendre, 46 miles in diameter. Next
and FAR over the edge, Is the magnifI-
cent walled enclosure known as Hum
boldt-l3O miles long, and with an area
Of 10000 square miles.
Shadows sharply Cast.
It ought, perhaps, to be explained
that astronomers are able to measure
the heights Of the lunar mountains
with great accuracy by the lengths Of
their shadows By the same means, in
many instances, they determine the
surrounding country. The moon having
no atmosphere, shadows are cast there
with a sharpness unknown TO US There
are no gradations between darkness
and light Thus If you and 1 were
standing 10 feet apart on the moon to-
ward sunset and an advancing shadow
enYeloped you, while remained in the
sunlight, you would be absolutely in
This is one Of the conditions which
must produce on the moon what would
be to US a very weird and unearthly
effect. Another is the absolute silence
sound, of course. If two persons were
standing side by side, and one Of them
shouted to the other, the latter would
hear nothing. A thousand cannon
might be fired and a thousand drums
beaten, yet no noise would be made.
Beyond Humboldt is Hecataeus, lis
miles in diameter, with a conspicuous
central mountain. On the east and
west it is nanked by other huge en-
closures, so far over into the undis-
covered country as TO be visible only
when the moon makes It's utmost tilt
Again beyond are NendelnuS and Ian
grenus. The former is a walled plain
90 miles in diameter, the continuity Of
its ramparts broken on the west by a
huge ring plain, almost exactly hex
agOnal in shape, the surface Of which
is fairly riddled with craterlets and
pits. Langrenus is itself hexagOnal in
form, and about the same size as Ven
delinus, with rugged central noun
Tain II Is the most norInerly OF
chain Of immense walled plains extend
ing more than 500 miles, from near the
lunar equator southwark.
Always the Same Face.
So far as our observations OF the
back Of the moon go to show, it would
not appear that the Undiscovered cOun- /
try differs very Importantly in the
from the side Of the lunar orb which |
we are accustomed to see. The moon
always presents to US the same face ]
because 1t rotates on its axis in pre- /
J.
its orbit around the earth II the two 4
periods did not agree within a fraction 1
Of q second, we should soon see what /
was on the other side Of the moon.
When the moon is but a crescent, we /
are often able with the naked eye tc /
see the outline of the entire sphere 4
with some distinctness. Then we say /
that "the new moon is holding the old 1
moon in its arms" We can do this be-
cause the orb is made visible by sun
light reflected from the earth-in other i
words, by earthshine.
VIII Drop Into the sun
Prof Pickering says that the moon /
is more properly speaking a satellite 4
Of the sun than Of the earth. II il 4
were suddenly stopped in its orbit, ii
would leave the earth. never TO return,
and would drop directly into the sun.
He says also that the moon IS stead
ily moving away from the earth, and
that some day, many millions Of years
from now. il viii cease TO rise and set
There will be one sPot on the earth
where IL will always be directly over
head, and on the other side Of our
planet it will never be visible But the
moon even then will continue to pre- !
sent the same face in this direction, and
the face it turns away will still remain
IS IT is today, the Undiscovered coun-
Try.