The Mellette County pioneer. [volume] (Wood, Mellette County, S.D.) 19??-1971, 1922-02-03

80 81 W AANAA AItNA0Cis AAG II
reason is less creditsblc to our intel
|ieeuce ana to our application of the
facts OF history.
Same Old Argument.
1T is the same old argument en-
ployed rs the ancients from the days
of Aristotle to those of Calico, and
for which some persons have gone so
far as 30 ridicule them. Apply it TO
the present case, it may be expressed
briefly as lecauSe owing to a
plausible and generally accepted theory,
life is believed To be impossible
on the moon, therefore it is unneces-
sary o. consider The facts which may
Ice safely ignored. Life is therefore
said not to exist on the moo 1t
would appear that human nature has
not changed very much in 2.G00 years.
The "~tcrminator," or boundary line
between light ana darkness, which
would correspond with that part Of the
earth where the day was breaking, is
the more interesting because the light
md. shadow effect shows the moons
features in relief, enabling the astron-
omer to make out clearly lis extreme
~ rugged and mountainous surface.
Fifty-siX hours Of sunlight in the
crater Of Erastosthenes III, which Doc
tor Pickering made a particular oh
ject Of study, evoked plant life. Moth
Ing in Doctor chickering's report indi-
Gated that these were cultivated
crops. After describing the appear
once of dark patches, which sprung
into existence and then faded out, he
continued:
Expressing the matter otherwise,
we may say that the vegetation re-
quires two and a half days to appear,
1t lasts for only two days, and then
rests for three days, and then pro-
duces the second crop, lasting for four
days more, which then gradually dis
appears in the evening shades. We
thus have evidence Of a variety Of lu-
mar vegetation. The wings Of the
northern spot begin to develop as
soon rs the sunlight strikes Them
These periods vary, however, in diff.
fercnt areas Of vegetation observed.
Crops with different exposures vary
IN duration from two TO eleven days,
and the average is about a week.
IN %quickncss Of development" save
Professor Pickering, some Of it ever
yieS with our mushrooms and toad
stools. The crop has TO be brief in
order to ripen at all, and it is doubt
full if any Of it In the region we have
described lasts through the lunar
night
Telling how dark patches and nnes
varied in their positions he continued
1T thus appears that the runs on the
moon, like the canals on Mars, Shift
their positions over the surface. In
both cases the surface discoloration
has changed its place. This cannot be
due to mineral or inorganic forces.
Life, therefore, exists on both these
planets.
Indeed" he continued later, Gin
stead of finding the moon a dead, I'M
changeable body. as it is usually re-
garded, We find that the shifts and
changes taking place in certain Of the
lunar detail, after all the shadows
have disappeared, present the chief
difficulty to the selenographer (geog
rapher Of the noon, who e%ndeavors
to sketch these features with ac-
curacy.'
After describing how fields Of vege-
tation darken, spread, grow pale and
shrink, Doctor Pickering continued:
This description typiies the changes
constantly occurring in many well-de-
fined lunar fields in the course Of their
development, changes much more
marked than any occurring on Mars"
The Southern Field.