Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 March 1893 — The Moon. [ARTICLE]

The Moon.

The age of the moon cannot be told accurately. Scientists have some idea of the age of the earth, and it has been believed until lately that the moon was older than the earth because she is not now inhabited, nor does there seem to be any water or vegetation upon her—only vast mountains and deep valleys. The inference is that she is a “dead world” that she has lived through all her prime when she was green and beautiful and teemed with life, and now she is only useful to light up our planet, around which she revolves once in every twenty-eight days, making our months. It is now thought by spme scientists that the moon was once a part of our planet, and that it was thrown off from our earth when the earth was a soft molten mass. This would make the moon more than 21,000,000 years old. The earth, according to geology, has been in existence 21,000,000 years, counting only from the formation of the primitive soils.