The wonders of nature Author:Rudolph Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: WHAT IS THE MOON? There are more asking this question, mentally, than would be willing to acknowledge it. With all the knowledge of professional business, the... more »re is often a most lamentable ignorance of the most common phenomena of the natural world. But why should men go through the world, and remain almost as ignorant of the wonders above and around them as dumb cattle ? How much more would they enjoy nature if better acquainted with it. Night is invested with peculiar charms to the student of science, even though he be but a novice in it. Even a thoughtful savage must be impressed by " the Moon walking in its brightness," and majestically marching in silent grandeur among the Stars ; and her frequent and mysterious changes of place and form, must fill his mind with solemn awe. We need not then wonder that her matchless beauty and valuable service as Queen of Night, have so often inspired devotion in untutored minds, and led them to render her divine honours. An effort to learn more of the mysteries of this wonderful object will be amply repaid. At the outset, we must understand that the Moon, though giving us so much light, is, nevertheless, a dark body like our earth. It is probably composed of materials such as go to make up our globe, all ofthem non-luminous, and affording not a single ray of light. How, then, does she appear so beautifully bright ? Simply by reflecting the light falling on her surface from the sun. Like our own globe, she is always warmed and lighted by the great solar orb, and appears to us full, or, ia crescent form, according as her illumined side is wholly, or, in part, turned toward ns. By moving a sphere horizontally around a stationary lamp, an observer, at the distance of a few feet, will see all the phases of the Moon faintly visible on t...« less