sand eight hundred and twenty-eight miles. This is the distance
between the centers of the two globes. With this distance separating
them, the companion worlds--the earth and the moon--circle round each
other, as they both travel round the central sun.

But now you will be curious to learn whether our companion planet, the
moon, really presents the appearance of a world, when studied with a
powerful telescope.

If we judged the moon in this way, we should say that she is not only
not inhabited by living creatures, but that she could not possibly be
inhabited. What is it that makes our earth a fit abode for us who live
upon it? Her surface is divided into land and water. We live on the
land; but without the water we should perish.

Were there no water, there would be no clouds, no rain, no snow, no
rivers, brooks, or other streams. Without these, there could be no
vegetable life; and without vegetable life, there could be no animal
life, even if animals themselves could live without water.

Yet again, the earth's globe is enwrapped in an atmosphere,--the air we
breathe. Without this air, neither animals nor vegetables could live. I
might go further and show other features of the earth, which we are at
present justified in regarding as essential to the mere existence, and
still more to the comfort, of creatures living upon the earth.

Now, before the telescope was invented, many astronomers believed that
there was water on the moon, and probably air also. But as soon as
Galileo examined the moon with his largest telescope (and a very weak
telescope it was), he found that whatever the dark parts of the moon may
be, they certainly are not seas.

More and more powerful telescopes have since been turned on the moon. It
has been shown that there are not only no seas, but no rivers, pools,
lakes, or other water surfaces. No clouds are ever seen to gather over
any part of the moon's surface. In fact, nothing has ever yet been seen
on the moon which suggests in the slightest degree the existence of
water on her surface, or even that water could at present possibly
exist; and, of course, without water it is safe to infer there could be
neither vegetable nor animal existence.

It would seem, then, that apart from the absence of air on the moon,
there is such an entire absence of water that no creatures now living on
the earth could possibly exist upon the moon. Certainly man could not
exist there, nor could animals belonging