As well might it be said that a horse, harnessed to a beam, and going
round a ring, or an imprisoned stone swung round in a sling, make each
one simultaneous revolution on their axes, when their very positions are
a sufficient refutation! or that the balls in an orrery, attached
immovably to the ends of their respective rods, and turning with them
(merely to show revolutions in orbits), perform each a simultaneous
revolution on their axis, when such claim would be simply ridiculous,
since the only revolution, in each case, has its focus outside of the
ball, therefore orbital only; and so, too, with the moon, whose motion
is precisely analogous, and prejudice alone can retain such an
unphilosophical hypothesis as its _axial_ revolution.

LUNAR CHARACTERISTICS.

The moon, in consequence of its orbital revolution, having no connecting
axial motion, has always presented but one side to the earth, so that in
process of forming a crust, from its incipient molten state, it became,
by the constant attraction of the earth upon one side, elongated toward
our globe, now generally admitted to be by calculation about thirty
miles, and proved by photographs, which also show an elongation. The
necessary consequence of this constant attraction upon one side, has
been not only to intensify volcanic action there, by the continued
effect of gravitation, so long as its interior remained in a molten
state, but from the same reasoning, to confine all such volcanic action
exclusively to this side of the moon. Thus we have the reason for the
violently disrupted state which that luminary presents to the telescopic
observer, exceeding any analogy to be found upon our globe, as the
earth's axial motion has prevented any similar concentrated action upon
any particular part of its surface, either from solar or lunar
attraction. Another marked effect of the elongation of the moon toward
the earth has been to elevate its visible side high above its atmosphere
(which would have enveloped it as a round body), and in consequence into
an intensely cold region, producing congelation, in the form of frost
and snow, which necessarily envelop its entire visible surface. These
effects took place while yet the crust was thin and frequently disrupted
by volcanic action, and wherever such action took place, the fiery
matter ejected necessarily dissolved the contiguous masses of frost and
snow, and these floods of water, as soon as they receded from th