which you will take care to remember, that all the moons that are there drawn represent but the one moon in the different parts of its orbit round the earth, accompanying the earth in the earth's orbit round the sun.

There is no change, therefore, of the moon, except as to the change of the amount of illuminated surface which, from time to time, the moon is able to show to the earth. There is no change of the moon, except a change of the moon's light. There is no change as to the mass of the moon; it is to the attraction of the mass of the moon that we attribute the phenomenon of the tides; but what is there left except the changes of the light of the moon, to which to attribute the moon's production of the changes of the weather?

The mass of the moon is always equal, and the motion of the moon is constant. The moon passes daily and regularly through all the meridians of the heaven, or over the longitudes of

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all the portions of the earth; and the action of the tides, or the changes in the heights of the ocean in all its different parts, are regular and daily also. There is consistency, therefore, at the least, in supposing a connection between the regular daily changes of place of the moon, and the regular daily changes of the heights of the parts of the ocean, or the rise and fall of the tides; but what is there reasonably to connect the changes of only the light of the moon, with the changes of the wind and weather?

The action, both of the mass of the moon and of the light of the moon, is equal over all parts of the earth; but the winds and weather are regular upon some parts of the earth, and irregular upon others. Can the equal action of the mass and of light of the moon in all parts, be the equal cause of the regularity in one place, and of the irregularity in another?

I have said more to my little readers, about the complicated question of the influence of the

moon upon the changes of the weather, than I should have permitted myself, if it had not seemed to me that the points which I have thus brought forward will greatly help them in their reflections upon the nature and history of the moon, and consequently in their knowledge of both. But I have some things still to add, about the light of the moon, which I reserve for my next chapter. The light of the moon, (the sole subject of change in the moon,) is certainly a powerful agent in nature, or has powerful influences upon the earth and most things that belong to it; but is it only to changes of the light of the moon, that changes of wind and weather are usually ascribed; and can these changes of the light of the moon (regular all over the earth) be the causes of the changes of wind and weather, regular upon some parts of the earth, and irregular upon others?

CHAP. X.

MORE ABOUT MOONLIGHT AND ITS INFLUENCES. ABOUT THE FREEZING INFLUENCE OF MOONLIGHT. ABOUT THE NATURE OF FROST, OR PHENOMENON OF FREEZING. ABOUT CRYSTALLIZATION. M. BECQUEREL AND MR. CROSSE. ABOUT PLAYING AND DANCING BY MOONLIGHT.

I HAVE said, that even the light of the moon is confessedly a powerful agent in nature; or, that, in other words, it has powerful influences upon the earth, and upon most of the things belonging to the earth. I am not going to talk much that large subject; but only to mention a striking and beneficent example.

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Would you believe that light is able to freeze, as well as to warm, the objects which it falls upon? Yet this is said to be the operation, in certain circumstances, of the light of the moon! You must hear me patiently.

Very odd things, indeed, are said, and have