MOON 299 MOOR tion but is supported by gifts from Prot- estant evangelical churches, the college students spend part of their time in remunerative work to enable them to pay the tuition fees and support themselves. The enrollment in 1914 for the day and evening classes was 1,266, while 1,567 were taking correspondence courses. The institute has trained over 700 students for the foreign mission field. MOON, the single satellite attendant on the earth. Its diameter is 2,160 miles, that of the earth (which is 7,918) being nearly four times as great. Its superficial extent is about a 13th part of the earth's surface ; its bulk is 1-45 that of the earth, but as the earth is relatively heavier, its weight is about 80 times that of the moon. As the moon revolves around the earth it manifests phases. After absence for a few nights it reappears as a deli- cate crescent of white light in the W. sky after sunset. Night after night it moves farther to the E., the illuminated portion of its disk continually increasing till the moon becomes full and rises about sunset. When the light of the moon has again so diminished that it is in its last quarter, it is seen high in the heavens in the morning. When it becomes full, the sun and the earth are so nearly in a straight line that the moon narrowly escapes being eclipsed; when new moon is again reached, the sun is nearly under- going similar obscuration (see Eclipse). The moon shines only by the light of the sun reflected from its surface. To equal the brilliance of the sun 600,000 full moons would be required. The moon appears at all times nearly of the same size, showing that its orbit cannot be far from circular. Its average distance is 240,000 miles, varying at times between 220,000 and 260,000, but the ordinary fluctuations do not exceed 13,000 miles on either side of the mean value. The moon performs a complete revolution around the earth in 27 days, 7 hrs., 23 min., and 11.461 sees. This is called its sidereal period. The lunar month is longer than the sidereal period by 2 days, 5 hrs., 51.41 sees., because of the ad- vance of the earth in the orbit between two successive conjunctions of the moon. As the moon revolves on its own axis nearly in the same time as it completes its orbit round the earth, it presents to us at all times nearly the same side of its surface. No clouds appear on it; apparently there is no water to send them forth or an atmosphere in which they may float. The whole surface is studded with volcapoes, apparently extinct. Their craters are broad, beyond anything exist- ent on the earth. Tycho is 50 miles across, so is Aristotle, Theophilus is 64, and Petavius 78. Some are 16,000 and 17,000 feet deep. From the absence of an atmosphere the moon must be uninhabit- able by any life analogous to that with which we are acquainted. MOON, MOUNTAINS OF THE, a high chain of mountains supposed to cross the continent of Africa from E. to W. On the earlier charts they were placed behind the fertile regions which line the S. side of the Mediterranean, separating them from the Great Desert; but the location of the mountains has been grad- ually changed by geographers southward. MOONSHINER, a term applied in the Southern and Western States to makers of illicit whisky. MOONWORT {Botrychium lunaria) , an interesting fern, native of Great Britain, and widely distributed over northern Europe, penetrating to Arctic regions and Asia, the few other species of which the family is composed appear- ing also in North America. The plant consists of a root-stock bearing a single erect stem from three to six inches high. A single pinnate leaf springs from the stem about midway, the segments half- moon shaped, pale green, and thick. The fructification is developed on a branched spike, pyramidal in outline, from one to two inches long. The largest growing species, named the rattlesnake fern, abounds in places frequented by that reptile. MOOR, a native of the N. coast of Africa, which formed the ancient Mauri- tania, now represented by the countries of Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, and Tripoli. In 709 the Arabs conquered Mauritania, and converted the people to Mohammed- anism. The conquerors and the con- quered amalgamated together, and in 711 an army of this mixed population, under Arab leaders, crossed at the Straits of Gibraltar, and began the conquest of the Spanish peninsula. This they speed- ily effected, with the exception of the mountainous districts of Asturias and Galicia. When almost the whole of the rest of Europe was sunk in ignorance and barbarism, learning and the arts flourished among the Moors in Spain. About the middle of the 11th century, many of the local governors established themselves as independent potentates. The wars that followed so weakened the power of the Moors that the Christians rose against them under Alfonso, "the battler," and took Castile, with its capi- tal, Toledo. Their progress was for a time checked; but subsequerttly they con- tinued to extend their conquests till the
