observe and measure as well. He was one of a race of working astronomers of whom England had cause to be proud. They might be called, but they were not amateurs.
The second paper, read the same day, and headed "Astronomical Observations relating to the Mountains of the Moon," was more ambitious, and formed a better prelude to the path of discovery, on which Herschel would soon enter. He begins with an apology for attempting to ascertain the height of the lunar mountains, but a "knowledge of the construction of the moon leads us insensibly to several consequences, which might not appear at first; such as the great probability, not to say almost absolute certainty, of her being inhabited." He is equally certain that the moon rejoices in an atmosphere like the earth's.[1] Passing over this scientific faith, in the meantime, as a heritage he received from the past but had not examined, we find him boldly venturing to dispute the conclusions arrived at by Galileo, Hevelius, and others of great name. Galileo had made the lunar mountains higher than any then known on the earth, five and a half miles; but Hevelius reduced this
- ↑ In 1762, Samuel Dunn, from "a nice examination of the two ends of Saturn's ring, at such time when the planet is on the dark edge of the moon," came to the conclusion "that this diversity of appearance must have arisen from the effects of an atmosphere of the moon." Previously, he states, the existence of an atmosphere was much debated, and is "still undecided" (Phil. Trans. for 1761-2, vol. lii. p. 580).
In a paper read before the Royal Society on November 27, 1766, the Prince de Croy expresses doubts about the existence of a lunar atmosphere, but "I am inclined to believe," he says, "there is no water in the moon." He also states that the hollows between the mountains marked on his diagram are surprising on account of their depth.
