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Nor is this all. So far as we can judge, the moon has no air; at least no sign of air has ever been perceived by astronomers, even when they have applied the most delicate tests by means of the most powerful instruments. It is certain at any rate that whatever air there may be is very small in quantity compared with our air. Thus in the daytime the sun's heat is poured down with unmitigated effect upon the moon's surface, which during the long fortnightly day must be positively broiled by the solar rays; while at night, or rather so soon as night begins, the heat all passes away into space, and then for hour after hour of the long lunar night an intensity of cold must prevail far exceeding the bitterest cold of our Arctic and Antarctic regions.

It has been thought that on the farther side of the moon a different state of things may prevail, that oceans and an atmosphere may be there, and, possibly, living creatures not differing very greatly from those on our earth. I must confess that the evidence on which this opinion has been based does not appear to me convincing. And, apart from this, we see far enough round the other side to detect some signs of air, if not of oceans, if any existed there. If the whole surface of the moon be re

parts we see at one 589, while the parts

presented by the number 1000, the time or another amount in all to never seen amount in all but to 411. Then there is this consideration, which to most minds will not seem without weight:-The part of the moon turned earth

wards is, of course, the only part whence the earth can be seen. Now, it would certainly be a singular, and one may even say an unwise, arrangement (at any rate, the wisdom of the arrangement is not manifest to us) by which the

inhabitants of the moon should be so confined to a certain lunar region as to be deprived of all opportunity of beholding the beautiful spectacle presented by our earth, as, with varying phases, she shows her huge disc (more than thirteen times larger than the moon's as seen by us), with its continents and seas, passing in orderly sequence into and out of view, with its aspect changing as the seasons progress, and with all the other charming phenomena which she must present to lunar inhabitants, if any such there are.

More reasonable appears the conclusion that either the moon is not now inhabited, or, if she is inhabited, that it is by classes of beings quite unlike any with which we are familiar.

THE EVENING STAR.

Now glows the firmament

With living sapphires; Hesperus, that leads

The starry host, rides brightest.-PARADISE LOST.

IN April there shines towards the west a star so far surpassing all others in the heavens in brightness, that it might well be believed to be the most important of all the orbs discernible by us. It is Hesperus, the star of the evening, the planet Venus; and, in reality, so far from being the largest of all the orbs we see, there are but two celestial bodies, besides the Moon, which are smaller than this beautiful planet. The planet Jupiter, which can now be seen at midnight, and is far inferior in brightness to Venus, is in reality a globe surpassing her more than thirteen hundred times in volume. And even Jupiter sinks into utter insignificance by comparison with the least of the fixed stars; while the splendid Sirius, which shines less brightly far than Jupiter, probably surpasses Venus in bulk more than a thousand millions of times.

Yet Venus is a globe of great magnitude when we compare her with all terrestrial measures of size. That star which seems like a very bright but tiny light in the

sky, has, in reality, a surface which our swiftest modes of travelling would enable creatures like ourselves to survey only in a long period of time. Supposing that surface ocean-covered, then a vessel travelling as fast as our swiftest steamers would be more than two months in completely circumnavigating it. It gives a signal proof of the mistaken ideas we are apt to form, to look at that bright point of light now illumining our evening skies, and to consider that a steam vessel travelling around it, and ploughing the waves so swiftly that the sea-foam would dash in great white masses over its prow, would have to pursue its course unceasingly for seventy or eighty days in order to complete the circuit of that seemingly minute body.

It may be said without noticeable inaccuracy that Venus is a globe as large as our earth. Some telescopic measures have led astronomers to the conclusion that she is larger than our earth, while others (and these are commonly regarded as the best) appear to show that she is somewhat smaller than the earth. She has no moon, and is in that respect inferior to her sister planet Terra. But in many circumstances she so closely resembles the earth, that it is difficult to imagine that she is not, like the earth, an inhabited world. She is nearer to the sun, indeed, in the proportion of about 73 to 100, and consequently she receives more light and heat than the earth, in the proportion of about 100 times 100 to 73 times 73, or nearly 2 to 1. This seems at first sight to render

her unfit to be the abode of living creatures; for even in our temperate latitudes the increase of the sun's light and heat in a twofold degree would undoubtedly destroy nearly all the forms of life now existing on the earth. But we are apt to forget that the forms of life we are accustomed to are not necessarily the only possible forms of life. It is almost impossible to say under what conditions life is possible or impossible. Men of science have lately been taught this in a very striking manner. For, judging by what they know of the state of things at the bottom of the deep sea, they concluded that there could be no living creatures there. They reasoned that the pressure exerted by the water would crush the life out of any known creature, which was unquestionably true. A piece of the hardest and densest wood, sunk to those depths, has the water literally forced into its very substance, and the tremendous mail of the crocodile, or the thick skin of the rhinoceros, would be unable to resist a tithe of the enormous pressure exerted by the water at the bottom of deep seas. Yet it is now known that creatures not only exist down there, but that, notwithstanding the great darkness which must prevail there, these creatures are provided with the means of seeing. So unlike are they to all other creatures, however, that they are unable to live out of their native depths, and when dragged up by the dredges, they burst asunder and are killed long before reaching the surface. This should teach us that although it may be proved that in some inaccessible world, like Venus, or

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