MOONSHINE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 100, 18 October 1911, Page 2

MOONSHINE.

j (To the Kditor.) / .Sir Permitting me a word with reference to the sinister description of the | physical condition of the "Goddess of the Xight" given by Mr Clement Wraggc in a Sydney lecture and noticed in your issue of this morning, the 16th October, the question might arise as to what extent the heat of the sun can be conducted to the surface of a planet or satellite without the medium of air. It would seem true that ignition or combustion is not possible in vacuum, consequently not unreasonable to further consider that heat itself may he only partially transmitted through vacuum, and it is notable that the higher the ascent through the air the colder it becomes. Of course this may be ascribed to the diminishing distance from the earth's surface, but be that as it may, if fire does not occur without the presence of air in some form, and it is admitted that the now extinct craters of tlie moon were unquestionably once burning. atmospheric vapor must have covered the moon when those volcanoes were in eruption, and why should it have dissipated or have gone now? Also whatever intense heat might be experienced on the moon during its fortnight's day would be modified o-r neutralised more or less by its fortnight's "night" or loss of sun; the truth of the matter very likely being that there is nothing in the climate only of the moon that practised arctic or tropical explorers might not endure, let alone beings constituted for such conditions. What would prove fatal to an inhabitant of the earth on the moon would be the difference in "gravity." He n»t unlikely might experience some terrible fits of sea sickness and feel lighter or more buoyant than if immersed up to the neck in water. I am, etc, — C.W.W.