Omaha daily bee., 1914-07-12

THE human soul always goes to extremes
Only hundred years ago astronomers
and poets alike wrote Of the inhabi-
tants of the Moon the Selenites. with all of
the assurance Of witnesses who had really
seen them and recognized in them creatures
organized Just like the inhabitants of our
planet, without stopping to think that other
worlds might not be like ours, the conditions
Of existence being so different They even
described the landscapes, the streets and the
great cities, the fortifcations, the industrial
establishments the smoke of factories even
the weekly day of rest.
But all at once ideas changed. From 1880
to 1S4O the German astronomer Maedler de.
voted himself to a careful study of the moon
and his beautiful map became classic. His
work was followed by that of Schmidt, director
Of the observatory at Athens, who issued
"selenographic" chart which was even more
complete. Maedler thought that the terres.
trial globe would pass through no geologic
changes from time onward and as to
the moon, in his eyes, it was an ankylosed
world for ages, upon whose surface there we're
no variations.
Upon the authority of this eminent observer
an aphorism soon appeared in the classic
works: The moon is a dead star" And for
more than half century most books repeated
this legend, with the exception Of some few
thinkers who do not give themselves up to
generalizations which have not been demon
strated, but seek the truth independently, set
ting aside all preconceived notions.
Solitary torch of night as it moves through
the heavens, this star is the pale witness of
the vicssitudes of our earth. Its tranquil
clarity seems elveloped in mystery. Its land
scapes and monuments all transfgured
nt.t 4, I9nrI,N a.
of nearing lethargy, is not, as has been sup
posed, the absolute image of death.
OF course the aspects of our satellite do not
resemble those which our earth would offer
at the same distance.
Nor have we, in our observations Of the
moon, the moving variations which appear on
the planet Mars, an intense activity associated
with marked seasons and almost daily meta
morphoses.
Nor are there the fantastic and formid.
able revolutions such as we observe on that
giant world, Jupiter just now passing through
its period of primordial elaboration But tho
attentive study of the moon holds many sur
prises for naturalists and astronomers
1t seems interesting to analyze the most
precise observations made, to compare them
carefully, and 10 prove in how far our notions
should be modified | am especially interested
because the very first subject which l pre-.
sented to the Academy OF Sciences was on the
variability of the lunar crater of Linnaeus, and
that was in 1867. So have been working up.
this article for some forty-seVen years.
was not the only one at that time to hold
that the moon was not yet dead, and since then
Webb, of England; William Pickering, of the
United States and Klein, of Germany. have
agreed with me, but they are the exceptions.
Some even go so far to say that the moon
never had air, water or life.
The first classic affirmation that must be
disputed is that the moon has no atmosphere.
This statement is founded upon a calculation
by the great astronomer Bessel, which has to
be entirely recast. Inasmuch as when the
moon, by virtue of its own motion in the
heavens, is abous to pass a star, we may fix
the precise moment of the disappearance Of
the star as well as the exact instant of its
reappearance, and so arrive at the duration Of
the occultation or hiding of the star.
On the other hand, we can determine abso-
lutely by calculation what line the star follows
behind the lunar disk during its occultation
and thence deduce the time which the moon
takes to move forward in the heavens a dis.
tance 10 that line. For, during the eclipses OF
stars, If the rays Of light we're DETECTED ever
so little by the refraction OF a lunar atmos.
pueTey III pLdCS VI disappearing at the precise
instant Of geometrical contact, the star would
remain visible sometime afterward, because
the rays would be injected by that atmos-
phere; by the same reasoning, the star would
begin to reappear on the opposite side of the
lunar disk some time before the interposition
had completely ceased; the duration of the
occultation would necessarily be decreased in
this way.
About 1880. Bessel thought that he might
state that the diameter of the moon figured
from the duration of the oecultatons differed
by less than a second Of an arc Of the diameter
directly measured. and that the refraction
produced on these occultations by supposed