e fiery
element, were immediately converted into lengthened ridges of ice,
diverging from the mountain summits like streams of lava. Hence many of
the apparent lava streams are but ridges of ice, and in consequence,
depending upon the angle of reflection (determined by the age of the
moon, which is but its relative position between the sun and earth), all
observers are struck with the brilliancy of the reflected light from
many of those long lines of ridges.

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
th