―257―

For the Literary Magazine.

stones from the moon.

ONE of the most remarkable ef-
fects of the progress of science, is
the first bringing into disrepute opi-
nions originating in credulity and ig-
norance; and afterwards restoring
them again to their original credibi-
lity. The man in the moon, which
vulgar optics used so clearly to dis-
tinguish, was afterwards condemned
and exploded, as an absurd impossi-
bility. Unlearned eyes saw nothing
in the moon but a globe, or rather a
circular mass, rolling, at a moderate
distance above us, and between
which and the earth there was the
same congeniality as between the
top of a terrestrial mountain and
the bottom, and so situated, that any
thing detached from it must neces-
sarily fall among the dwellings of
men. That matters should some-
times fall from the moon was there-
fore a probable event, and certain
masses were pointed out, which
were believed to have actually thus
fallen. The progress of astronomy,
which removed the moon to a much
greater distance from the earth
then the vulgar had imagined it to
be, and which made it the centre of
a certain sphere of attraction, tore
up these popular opinions by the
roots. But now, behold the won-

―258―

ders which have been wrought by
the discoveries of the eighteenth
century! Lalande and the best
astronomers are now firmly of opi-
nion, that optical glasses are in the
inevitable road to such a degree of
improvement as will enable us to
see rivers and trees, men and cattle,
in the moon, provided there be any
such there, and the probability that
stones have frequently fallen from
the moon has been shown to be ca-
pable of mathematical proof.

Many philosophers, both in Eng-
land and France, assert, that the
stones found in many parts of the
world, supposed to have dropped
from the clouds, are, in fact, the ef-
fect of eruptions from lunar volca-
noes. To prove that these eruptions
may reach the earth, it has been cal-
culated, that if the lunar volcanoes
in any part of the hemisphere of that
planet which is visible to us, should
project bodies with a force sufficient
to carry them with a velocity of
7000 feet in a second, they must ne-
cessarily throw them within the
sphere of the earth's attraction.
And even supposing that a body pro-
jected from a lunar volcano, meets
with a resistance equivalent to that
of two miles of an atmosphere of
equal density with ours, and suppos-
ing the velocity of projection to be
12,000 feet per second, and the body
to be a sphere, whose diameter is 12
inches, and specific gravity 10,000
times greater than that of the atmo-
sphere, it would lose in its passage
less than one-third of its first velo-
city, and would still retain more
than sufficient force to carry it with-
in the sphere of the earth's attrac-
tion.

In answer to the objection that
arises from the bodies being in a
state of ignition when they fall to the
earth, it is replied, that the space
between the earth and the moon
must be either nearly or altogether
a vacuum; it must be almost, if not
quite, a non-conductor of heat; so
that it will easily be conceived, that
a body passing through it may re-
tain, during its passage of about four
or five days, nearly the same degree

of heat with which it set out, espe-
cially as no change of texture takes
place, by which its heat can become
latent.