Its air, its waters, its
clouds, its life are gone, and only a skeleton remains -- a mute but
eloquent witness to a cosmical tragedy without parallel in the range
of human knowledge.
One cannot but regret that the moon, if it ever was the seat of
intelligent life, has not remained so until our time. Think what the
consequences would have been if this other world at our very door had
been found to be both habitable and inhabited! We talk rather airily
of communicating with Mars by signals; but Mars never approaches
nearer than 35,000,000 miles, while the moon when nearest is only a
little more than 220,000 miles away. Given an effective magnifying
power of five thousand diameters, which will perhaps be possible at
the mountain observatories as telescopes improve, and we should be
able to bring the moon within an apparent distance of about forty
miles, while the corresponding distance for Mars would be more than
seven thousand miles. But even with existing telescopic powers we can
see details on the moon no larger than some artificial constructions
on the earth. St Peter's at Rome, with the Vatican palace and the
great piazza, if existing on the moon, would unquestionably be
recognizable as something else than a freak of nature. Large cities,
with their radiating lines of communication, would at once betray
their real character.
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