Identifier: astronomyforamat00flam (find matches)
Title: Astronomy for amateurs
Year: 1904 (1900s)
Authors: Flammarion, Camille, 1842-1925 Welby, Frances A. (Frances Alice) tr
Subjects: Astronomy
Publisher: New York, D. Appleton and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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d to the Heavens wasstruck, above all, with the brilliancy of this solitary globe,straying among the stars. The Moon first suggestedan easy division of time into months and weeks, andthe first astronomical observations were limited to thestudy of her phases. Daughter of the Earth, the Moon was born at thelimits of the terrestrial nebula, when our world was stillno more than a vast gaseous sphere, and was detachedfrom her at some critical period of colossal solar tide.Separating with regret from her cradle, but attached tothe Earth by indissoluble ties of attraction, she rotatesround us in a month, from west to east, and this move-ment keeps her back a little each day in relation to thestars. If we watch, evening by evening, beginning fromthe new moon, we shall observe that she is each nighta little farther to the left, or east, than on the preceding 233 ASTRONOMY FOR AMATEURS evening. This revolution of the Moon around ourplanet produces the phases, and gives the measure ofour months.
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Fig. 64.—The Full Moon slowly rises,234 THE MOON During her monthly journey she always presentsthe same face to us. One might think that the fear oflosing us had immobilized her globe, and prevented herfrom turning. And so we only know of her the vaguesketch of a human face that has been observed throughall the ages. It seems, in fact, as though she were looking downupon us from the Heavens, the more so as the principalspots of her disk vaguely recall the aspect of a face. Ifwe try to draw it without the aid of instruments weobserve dark regions and clear regions that each inter-prets in his own fashion. To the author, for instance,the full Moon has the appearance represented in thefollowing figure. The spots resemble two eyes and thesketch of a nose; resulting in a vague human figure,as indicated on the lower disk. Others see a man car-rying a bundle of wood, a hare, a lion, a dog, a kan-garoo, a sickle, two heads embracing, etc.* But gen-erally speaking, there is a tendency to see

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