Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 106, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 May 1914 — Mystery of Mountains of the Moon [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Mystery of Mountains of the Moon

SHE moon, our genial neighbor in space, which looks down upon the follies of the earth with an ironical smile, 7 is no close to us that we

have excellent opportunity to pry into its secrets. Since the telescope was Invented, in 1608, astronomers have busied themselves in endeavoring to find out what this other world looks like at close quarters, and, thanks ito many a fine photograph full of detail of landscape, we now* have maps of that satellite which are at least as accurate as those we have of certain countries and more ample than those of the heart of Africa and the Polar regions. The moon is nearer to us than is any other heavenly body; only 238,833 miles divide It from us —a distance a bullet could cover in some pight days and an express train in some six months —a distance which seems short, indeed, when we recall the fact that the sun is four hundred times further from us. Our huge modern telescope, instruments which, in size, suggest big guns, permit us to make most minute observations, and, as it were, bring the lunar landscapes as close to us as, say, London is to Edinburgh. So, by using our eyes, we can take very entertaining voyages to the moon. Thus we can see her extensive gray plains, which are nothing more than dry beds representing seas that no longer exist and appear to the unaided vision as dark patches; so we can note her mountain ranges, which may be compared with the Alps, the Cordilleras and other chains, not only in aspect, but also in height —from 5,000 to 6,000 meters. The biggest of the moon’s mountains, called Curtius by astronomers, has a summit which is 8,800 meters from the plain; that is to say, it equals Mount Everest, the highest mountain of the earth. And it must be remembered that for-ty-nine moons could be placed in our globe, so that, comparatively, the lunar mountains are much more imposing than ours.’ At present, with the best telescopes and at the most favorable times, we can observe on the moon’s surface tiny craters barely 200 meters in diameter. Were the moon inhabited, had* it cities and towns and things like our canals, harbors and so on, we could see these with ease, and a place like London, for instance, would appear as a very bright spot during night time on the moon. But there is nothing of the sort. The moon has neither air nor water, for it is a wandering corpse among the stars. Much that we know of the moon is puzzling. Notably so are the remarkable mountains, some of which are shown in the illustrations. The moon is one great Norway—mountain after mountain. But the mountains are not formed as are those of the earth. They are rings of stone, in which are conical mountains. Make a ring of salt on the table cloth, half an inch high; in this ring place a conical mountain of salt rather smaller than a thimble; and you have a model of a mountain of the moon. Place a candle so that its light causes the salt mountains to cast long shadows on the cloth, and you have more or less the aspect of a lunar landscape as revealed by a telescope when the sun’s rays are striking it cross ways. Such a landscape as it would appear to a visitor to the moon is seen in one of the illustrations. The moon has probably 100,000 of these extraordinary stone rings—some but a few meters wide; others from 80 to 120 kilometers! The earth has no mountains resembling these, and many have wondered why nature should have built so differently on the moon, have speculated as to how the particular form of mountain came into being. We can only show artificial “mountains” having any resemblance to those of our satellite. A cinematograph film of a shot falling into a mass of pulp would make a very good illustration; a ring forms, suggesting the ring mountain of the moon. If a stone be dropped from a certain height on to thick plaster, a similar ring will be formed. Noting this, one feels convinced that the ring mountains of the moon were created in like fashion by the falling of gigantic meteors on to the moon while its surface was still in a viscous state. How is it possible, though, that ring mountains 120 kilometers wide should be so formed on the moon, when <we, who are so near to It, have never observed meteors of anything approaching the necessary size, have only seen specimens weighing a few Hlograms? We must find another solution. If a thick pulp is being cooked, bubbles form on its surface and, Jn bunrt-

ing, frequently create rings with cones in the center. The German geologist Dahmer heated a chalky pulp from below. Th? hot vapor broke through the crust of the pulp, small pieces of which flew upwards, and at the spot of each burst was formed a ring akin to those which follow the fall of a stone on to water. If the pulp could be cooled suddenly at this moment models of lunar ring mountains would be seen. This means the argument that the ring mountains of the moon occur only on heavenly bodies which are dead and will be a feature of our earth in the remote future. The earth’s crust is ever thickening as our world grows cooler and becoming less and less elastic, which suggests that cne day, when the crust can no longer “give” to the pressure of gases within it, it Will split in many places, and through these fissures will pour the fiery contents of the depths, to overwhelm bur globe. This fiery, all-enveloping “pulp” will be acted upon by the gases coming from below it and creating bubbles, just as the geologist’s chalky pulp was acted upon by the vapors caused by the heat below it. The moon, which cooled down much quicker than the larger earth is. cooling, has that dread period behind it; the earth, according' to Dahmer, has it to come. Not every geologist and astronomer will agree with this. The German man of science, Ebert, comes nearer to solving the problem. Ebert let some fluid Wood’s metal well up at short intervals through a small hole in a horizontal plate. Part of the metal flowed back;* but the other parts 'spread out and formed circles around the the hole, making an evergrowing ring-shaped rampart, Later,

as its impetus grew weaker, the flowing metal, instead of flowing away, formed into a little “mountain” in the center of the ring rampart. What has this to do with the moon? We know tlmfr the attraction of the moon conthe tides of the waters- of the earth; when the moon had but a thin crust, through the numerous fissures in which the fiery lava could force its way, the lunar control of ebb and flow was demonstrated. The laya broke through the fissures, rose up and then flowed back again; and so on for long periods until there were formed the ring mountains. Such is the theory~of Ebert, and very plaiisible it is.

The well-known English astronomers, Nasmyth and Carpenter, tried to prove years ago that the lunar mountains were formed as were the earth’s volcanoes, arguing that the ramparts grew out of the fiery mass thrown out of. the moon’s center, which fell in with circles round each crater from which they were projected. In the case of the volcanoes of the earth, say these English scientists, the matter thrown out was not cast in such wide circles, because ou the earth bodies are six times as heavy as they are on the moon with its much smaller power of attraction. This theory, too, has its numerous faults. Thus it must be admitted that we are still far from solving the mystery of the ring mountains of~the moon.

Typical Plantation House in the Swamp Region of Mississippi.