From the Earth to the Moon direct in ninety-seven hours and twenty minutes, and a trip round it . ane of theequator escaping, like a stcne from a sling of which the cord hadsuddenly snapped, would have formed around the sun sundry con-centric rings resembling that of Saturn. In their turn, again,these rings of cosmical matter, excited by a rotary motion roundthe central mass, would have been broken up and decomposedinto secondary nebulosities, that is to say, into planets. Similarlyhe would have observed these planets throw oflF one or more ringseach, which became the origin of the secondary b
From the Earth to the Moon direct in ninety-seven hours and twenty minutes, and a trip round it . ane of theequator escaping, like a stcne from a sling of which the cord hadsuddenly snapped, would have formed around the sun sundry con-centric rings resembling that of Saturn. In their turn, again,these rings of cosmical matter, excited by a rotary motion roundthe central mass, would have been broken up and decomposedinto secondary nebulosities, that is to say, into planets. Similarlyhe would have observed these planets throw oflF one or more ringseach, which became the origin of the secondary bodies which wecall satellites. Thus, then, advancing from atom to molecule, from molecule tonebulous mass, from that to a principal star, from star to sun,from sun to planet, and hence to satellite, we have the wholeseries of transformations undergone by the heavenly bodies duringthe first days of the world. Now, of those attendant bodies which the sun maintains intheir elliptical orbits by the great law of gravitation, some few intheir turn possess satellites. Uranus has eight, Saturn eight,. THE MOONS DISC. (p. 26 THE ROMANCE OF THE MOON. 25 Jupiter four, Neptune possibly three, and the Earth one. Thislast, one of the least important of the entire solar systera, we2all the Moon ; and it is she whom the daring genius of professed their intention of conquering. The moon, by her comparative proximity, and the constantlyvarying appearances produced by her several phases, has alwaysjccnpied a considerable share of the attention of the inhabitants)f the earth. _From the time of Thales of Miletus, in the fifth century ,iown to that of Copernicus in the fifteenth and Tycho Brahe in;he sixteenth century , observations have been from time to time!arried on with more or less coirectness, until in the present dayhe altitudes of the lunar mountains have been determined Avithsxactitude. Galileo explained the phenomena of the lunar light)roduced during certain of her p
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