spots must remain an impenetrable
mystery. We, who observe the same
phenomenon in the planet Mars, can easily account
for it.

In short, the earth's complexion is
brilliant, coming and going as her sentiments,
her passions, and the state of her health vary.
She turns brightly pale when and where it is
winter, and blushes tenderly green under the
influence of spring. The divers colours of
the different parts of our globe change, like
the hues of a magic lantern, according as they
are reflected from an arctic circle or a torrid
zone, a continent or a sea, a sandy desert or
a leafy forest, a mountain or a plain, and
even from an Old World or a New. The
regular return, once in every four-and-twenty
hours, of these richly-tinted spots, to the
same position, demonstrates at once to
moonite philosophers what has given men
so much trouble to establish, the fact of the
earth's revolution on her axis. It does
more; it provides sojourners on the moon
with the most magnificent clock that was
ever imagined. It is gigantic, permanent,
and keeps perfect time; it never stops, and
never requires winding up. The rotation of
the earth in four-and-twenty hours replaces
the hand which travels round the dial plate.
Every fixed spot, situated at a different
terrestrial longitude, is a number which marks
the hours and the minutes, as it passes over
this or that lunar meridian. The spots which
at any given moment make their appearance
at the edge of the earth's disc, will be
situated, six hours afterwards, exactly on the
straight line which passes from pole to pole,
through the centre of the disc; and six hours
afterwards they will have reached the opposite
edge of the disc, and will then immediately
disappear. Every spot takes exactly
four-and-twenty hours to return to the lunar
meridian which it has passed. In order to
ascertain the hour and its divisions by looking
at this admirable clock-face, all that is
required is to know the time it takes for the
different spots to pass from one meridian to
another. The appearance of a spot, as well
as its disappearance, also suffice to tell what
o'clock—or rather, what on earth—it is. A
visitor to the moon would reckon the hour
of the day by watching the passage of the
earth's spots over the lunar meridian, by
exactly the same method as he employs at
home, when he lays down the rule that fifteen
degrees to the east is an hour later, and
fifteen degrees to the west an hour earlier
than at the place where he happens to be.
Thus, when it is noon on the meridian of
Paris, it is one o'clock on that of Upsal, and
two o'clock on that of Suez.

Unfortunately for residents on the moon,
the earth is visible from only one of its (the
moon's) hemispheres. That hemisphere is
specially privileged; it knows no real night.
When sun-shine fails, the earth-shine
supplies its place with a light equal to thirteen
times that of our full moon-light when the
sky is at its clearest. And the earth
benevolently beams not light only, but also
warmth. It has at least been ascertained
beyond doubt that the rays of the moon do
transmit a feeble but observable amount of
heat; the larger and hotter mass of the
earth must dart on the moon considerably
more than thirteen times the heat reflected
from our satellite under the most favourable
circumstances. Moonites, then, might well
be excused for worshipping the earth in the
amplitude of her splendour. Those who
dwelt on the hemisphere whereon their
queen-like planet is invisible, might be
supposed to perform pilgrimages, at least once
in their lives, to adore so magnificent a
luminary. The journey, after all, is of no
extraordinary length from the most distant
central point—nine hundred miles; not
nearly so great as faithful Mussulmen
undertake, from the extremities of Asia or
Africa, to visit Mecca, where they are
rewarded by the sight of a big black stone
of (it is said) no remarkable pretensions to
beauty.

But the resplendent, open-countenanced
earth, who shines so benignantly on the
pallid moon, still shines in vain, as far as the
moon is concerned; because hers is the
pallor of inanimation. The illuminator and
the illuminated are separated by the width
of the fathomless gulf which forms the boundary
between life and death. Now that the
equilibrium of heat is established throughout
our satellite, her whole mass remains inert
and motionless; she is a mummified corpse;
whereas the earth is still lively and vigorous.
In her time, she has proved herself even
dangerously energetic, and may so prove
herself again. We are treading on very
tender ground when we walk over her
surface; as will be clear if we believe her
interior to consist of a spheroidal mass in
a state of igneous fusion, whose diameter
equals one hundred and twenty-five times the
thickness of her solid crust. Certainly, it is
within the bounds of truth to say, that the
earth's shell offers, in strict proportion, no
more resistance than that of an egg. All the
phenomena of past ages, as well as all the
phenomena occurring in our own times,—
that is to say, the whole force of analogy,—
are opposed to the opinion that the actual
surface of our globe is in a state of perpetual
stability. The earthquakes which swallow up
villages and towns, and the torrents of lava
which boil from the lips of volcanoes, to spread
themselves over the calcined fields, inculcate
a very different idea. With the future fate
of the crust of the earth is involved the fate
of the races of animals sustained by it. We
may live, therefore, mentally secure and
confident; but we must not forget that we
are not in perfect and certain surety, and
that a new satellite may one day be shot out
into space from the entrails of the earth, and