The general surface of the moon presents to the telescopic observer just that drear, cold, and chalk-like aspect, which our snow-clad mountains exhibit when the angle of reflection is similar to that in which we behold the lunar surface. In consequence, its mild light is due to the myriads of sparkling crystals, which diffusively reflect the rays of the sun.
As an attentive observer of the moon, I have been much puzzled to know why none of the hosts of observers, or scientific treatises, have taken this rational view of such necessary condition of the moon, deduced from the main facts of its original formation, here named and generally conceded. In the place of which, we still have stereotyped, in many late editions on astronomy, the names and localities of numerous seas and lakes, which advancing knowledge should long since have discarded.
Besides the above conclusions, which necessitate a snowy covering to the moon, none of the planets exhibit that drear white, except the poles of Mars, which are admitted to be snow by all astronomers, as we see them come and go with the appropriate seasons of that planet; whereas the continents of Mars appear dark, as analogously they do upon our earth, under the same solar effulgence. The analogy of sunlight, when reflected from our lofty mountains (at say thirty or forty miles distant) not covered with snow, viewed under the most favorable circumstances of brilliant light and the best angle of reflection, with no more of intervening atmosphere, always present sombre tints; whether viewed with the unaided eye or through a telescope. Such analogy clearly proves that no objects short of an absolute white could present such an appearance as light does upon lunar objects, viewed with high powers, in which the same drear white remains, without any greater concentration of light (as we can see objects in the moon whose diameter is five hundred feet) than is presented to our unaided eye from our own mountain masses. In viewing the moon with high powers, there is, in fact, a much greater amount of visible atmosphere intervening than can possibly apply in beholding objects on our earth, at even a few miles' distance, since if we look at lunar objects with a power of one thousand times, our atmosphere is thus magnified a thousand times also.
The main physical features of the visible half of the moon, with a good telescopic power, present an enormously elevated table land, traversed, here and there, with slightly elevated long ridges, and the general surface largely pitted with almost innumerable deep cusps or valleys, of every size, from a quarter of a mile to full thirty miles in diameter; generally circular and surrounded with elevated ridges, some rising to lofty jagged summits above the surrounding plain. These ridges, on their inner sides, show separate terraces and mural precipices, while their outer slopes display deeply scarred ravines and long spurs at their bases. These cusps, or deep valleys, are the craters of extinct volcanoes, and in their centres have generally one or two isolated sub-mountain peaks, occasionally with divided summits, which were the centres of expiring volcanic action, similar to those that exist in our own volcanic regions. Besides which the Lunar Apennines, so called, present to the eye a long range of mountains with serrated summits, on one side gradually sloped, with terraces, spurs, and ravines, and the other side mostly precipitous, casting long shadows, which clearly define the forms of their summits—all these objects presenting the same dead white everywhere.
Doubtless the farther side of the moon, which has not been subject to the same elongating or elevating process, nor the above-named causes for volcanic disruption, presents a climate and vegetation fitted for the abode of sentient beings. This side alone presenting an aspect of extreme desolation, far surpassing our polar regions.
It is generally stated in astronomical works, that shadows projected from lunar objects are intensely black, owing, it is stated, to there being no reflecting atmosphere; whereas in my long-continued habit of observation, those shadows appear no more black than those on our earth, when they fall on contrasting snowy surfaces. The reason for which, in the absence of a lunar atmosphere, to render light diffusive, is the brilliant reflection from snow crystals, upon all contiguous objects, which lie in an angle to receive the same, and in consequence I have often observed the forms of objects not directly illuminated by the sun.
The occasional apparent retention of a star on the limb of the moon, just before or after an occultation, seen by some observers, and thus evidencing the existence of some atmosphere, is doubtless due to the slight oscillations of the moon, by which we see a trifle more than half of that body, during which the atmosphere of its opposite side slightly impinges upon this.
A GLANCE AT PRUSSIAN POLITICS
PART II
We come now to the beginning of the present stage in the development of constitutional government in Prussia. It will have been noticed that the promises of Frederick William III. were not that he would grant a strictly popular constitution. His intention was that the different estates of the realm should be represented in the proposed national diet, the constitution recognizing a difference in the dignity of the different classes of inhabitants, and giving to each a share in the national government proportionate to its dignity. His son, at his coronation, promised to maintain the efficiency of the ordinances of June 5, 1823, and to secure a further development of the principles of this (so-called) constitution. Encouraged by this assurance, the Liberals labored to secure from him the full realization of their hopes. Frederick William IV. was just the man with whom such exertions could be used with good hope of success. He was intelligent enough to be fully conscious of the fact and the significance of the popular request for a constitution, and, though of course personally disinclined to reduce his power to a nullity, he had yet not a strong will, and had no wish to involve himself in a conflict with his subjects. Accordingly, in 1841, he convoked a diet in each province, and proposed the appointment of committees from the estates, who should act as counsel to the king when the provincial diets were not in session. These diets in subsequent sessions discussed the subject of a national diet, and proposed to the king the execution of the order issued in 1815. At length, February 8, 1847, he issued a royal charter, introducing, in fact, what had so often and so long before been promised, a constitution. The substance of the charter was that, as often as the Government should need to contract a loan, or introduce new taxes, or increase existing taxes, the diets of the provinces should be convoked to a national diet; that the committees of the provincial diets (as appointed in 1842) should be henceforth periodically, as one body, convoked; that to the diet, and, when it was not in session, to the committee, should be conveyed the right to have a deciding voice in the above-mentioned cases. April 11, 1847, the diet assembled for the first time; January 17, 1848, the united committee of the estates.
How long the nation would have remained contented with this concession