NIGHT IN THE MOON.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 183, 29 September 1876, Page 8

NIGHT IN THE MOON.

[from a contemporary.] At last, however, night sets in. Gratefully it comes after the sun has gathered up his smiting beams aud gone down to rest. All at once we are plunged into comparative obscurity, for again there is no twilight to stay the steps of departing day. At one stride comes the dark; but, looking up into the sky, we behold a vast orb, which pours down a milder and more beneficent splendour than the great lord of the sytem. It is such a moon as we terrestrials cannot boast of, for it is not less than thirteen times as large and luminous as our own. There it hangs in the firmament, without apparent change of place, as if "fixed in its everlasting seat." But not without change of surface, for this great globe is a painted panorama, and, turning round majestically on its axis, presents its oceans and continents in grand succession. As Europe and Africa, looking the Mediterranean in their embrace, roll away to the right, the stormy Atlantic offers its waters to view, and then the two Americas, with their huge forests and vast prairies, pass under inspection. Then the grand basin of the Pacific, lit up with island fire, meets the gazer's eye, and as this glides over the scene, the eastern rim of Asia and the upper portion of Australia sail into sight. The Indian Ocean, and afterwards the Arabian Sea, spread themselves out in the subdued splendour ; and thus, in four-and-twenty hours, " the great rotundity we tread " turns its pictured countenance to the moon, and grandly repays the listening lunarians by repeating, to the best of its ability, the story of its birth. Nor is the sky less marvellous in another respect, for the absence of any atmospheric diffusion of light permits the constellations to shine out with a distinctness which is never paralleled on earth. They glitter like diamond points set in a firmament of ebony. Stars and clusters which we never see by the naked eye, flock into view, and crowd the lunar heavens.