We can now state the end of this rather long discussion in a very simple and brief manner. Energy can only be yielded by the earth at the expense of some of the speed of its rotation. The tides must therefore cause the earth to revolve more slowly; in other words, the tides are increasing the length of the day.

The earth therefore loses some of its velocity of rotation; consequently it does less than its due share of the total quantity of spin, and an increased quantity of spin must therefore be accomplished by the moon; but this can only be done by an enlargement of its orbit. Thus there are two great consequences of the tides in the earth-moon system—the days are getting longer, the moon is receding further.

These points are so important that I shall try and illustrate them in another way, which will show, at all events, that one and both of these tidal phenomena commend themselves to our common sense. Have we not shown how the tides in their ebb and flow are incessantly producing friction, and have we not also likened the earth to a great wheel? When the driver wants to stop a railway train the brakes are put on, and the brake is merely a contrivance for applying friction to the circumference of a wheel for the purpose of checking its motion. Or when a great weight is being lowered by a crane, the motion is checked by a band which applies friction on the circumference of a wheel, arranged for the special purpose. Need we then be surprised that the friction of the tides acts like a brake on the earth, and gradually tends to check its mighty rotation? The progress of lengthening the day by the tides is thus readily intelligible. It is not quite so easy to see why the ebbing and the flowing of the tide on the earth should actually have the effect of making the moon to retreat; this phenomenon is in deference to a profound law of nature, which tells us that action and reaction are equal and opposite to each other. If I might venture on a very homely illustration, I may say that the moon, like a troublesome fellow, is constantly annoying the earth by dragging its waters backward and forward by means of tides; and the earth, to free itself from this irritating interference, tries to push off the aggressor and to make him move further away.

Another way in which we can illustrate the retreat of the moon as the inevitable consequence of tidal friction is shown in the adjoining figure, in which the large body E represents the earth, and the small body M the moon. We may for simplicity regard the moon as a point, and as this attracts each particle of the earth, the total effect of the moon on the earth may be represented by a single force. By the law of equality of action and reaction, the force of the earth on the moon is to be represented by an equal and opposite force. If there were no tides then the moon's force would of course pass through the earth's centre; but as the effect of the moon is to slacken the earth's rotation, it follows that the total force does not exactly pass through the line of the earth's centre, but a little to one side, in order to pull the opposite way to that in which the earth is turning, and thus bring down its speed. We may therefore decompose the earth's total force on the moon into two parts, one of which tends directly towards the earth's centre, while the other acts tangentially to the moon's orbit. The central force is of course the main guiding power which keeps the moon in its path; but the incessant tangential force constantly tends to send the moon out further and further, and thus the growth of its orbit can be accounted for.

We therefore conclude finally, that the tides are making the day longer and sending the moon away further. It is the development of the consequences of these laws that specially demands our attention in these lectures. We must have the courage to look at the facts unflinchingly, and deduce from them all the wondrous consequences they involve. Their potency arises from a characteristic feature—they are unintermitting. Most of the great astronomical changes with which we are ordinarily familiar are really periodic: they gradually increase in one direction for years, for centuries, or for untold ages; but then a change comes, and the increase is changed into a decrease, so that after the lapse of becoming periods the original state of things is restored. Such periodic phenomena abound in astronomy. There is the annual fluctuation of the seasons; there is the eighteen or nineteen year period of the moon; there is the great period of the precession of the equinoxes, amounting to twenty-six thousand years; and then there is the stupendous Annus Magnus of hundreds of thousands of years, during which the earth's orbit itself breathes in and out in response to the attraction of the planets. But these periodic phenomena, however important they may be to us mere creatures of a day, are insignificant in their effects on the grand evolution through which the celestial bodies are passing. The really potent agents in fashioning the universe are those which, however slow or feeble they may seem to be, are still incessant in their action. The effect which a cause shall be competent to produce depends not alone upon the intensity of that cause, but also upon the time during which it has been in operation. From the phenomena of geology, as well as from those of astronomy, we know that this earth and the system to which it belongs has endured for ages, not to be counted by scores of thousands of years, or, as Prof. Tyndall has so well remarked, “Not for six thousand years, nor for sixty thousand years, nor six hundred thousand years, but for æons of untold millions.” Those slender agents which have devoted themselves unceasingly to the accomplishment of a single task may in this long lapse of time have accomplished results of stupendous magnitude. In famed stalactite caverns we are shown a colossal figure of crystal extending from floor to roof, and the formation of that column is accounted for when we see a tiny drop falling from the roof above to the floor beneath. A lifetime may not suffice for that falling drop to add an appreciable increase to the stalactite down which it trickles, or to the growing stalagmite on which it falls; but when the operation has been in progress for immense ages, it is capable of the formation of the stately column. Here we have an illustration of an influence which, though apparently trivial, acquires colossal significance when adequate time is afforded. It is phenomena of this kind which the student of nature should most narrowly watch, for they are the real architects of the universe.

The tidal consequences which we have already demonstrated are emphatically of this non-periodic class—the day is always lengthening, the moon is always retreating. To-day is longer than yesterday; to-morrow will be longer than to-day. It cannot be said that the change is a great one; it is indeed too small to be appreciable even by our most delicate observations. In one thousand years the alteration in the length of a day is only a small fraction of a second; but what may be a very small matter in one thousand years can become a very large one in many millions of years. Thus it is that when we stretch our view through immense vistas of time past, or when we look forward through immeasurable ages of time to come, the alteration in the length of the day will assume the most startling proportions, and involve the most momentous consequences.

Let us first look back. There was a time when the day, instead of being the twenty-four hours we now have, must have been only twenty-three hours, How many millions of years ago that was I do not pretend to say, nor is the point material for our argument; suffice it to say, that assuming, as geology assures us we may assume, the existence of these æons of millions of years, there was once a time when the day was not only one hour shorter, but was even several hours less than it is at present. Nor need we stop our retrospect at a day of even twenty, or fifteen, or ten hours long; we shall at once project our glance back to an immeasurably remote epoch, at which the earth was spinning round in a time only one sixth or even less of the length of the present day. There is here a reason for our retrospect to halt, for at some eventful period, when the day was about three or four hours long, the earth must have been in a condition of a very critical kind.

It is well known that fearful accidents occasionally happen where large grindstones are being driven at a high speed. The velocity of rotation becomes too great for the tenacity of the stone to withstand the stress; a rupture takes place, the stone flies in pieces, and huge fragments are hurled around. For each particular grindstone there is a certain special velocity depending upon its actual materials and character, at which it would inevitably fly in pieces. I have once before likened our earth to a wheel; now let me liken it to a grindstone. There is therefore a certain critical velocity of rotation for the earth at which it would be on the brink of rupture. We cannot exactly say, in our ignorance of the internal constitution of the earth, what length of day would be the shortest possible for our earth to have consistently with the preservation of its integrity; we may, however, assume that it will be about three or four hours, or perhaps a little less than three. The exact amount, however, is not really very material to us; it would be sufficient for our argument to assert that there is a certain minimum length of day for which the earth can hold together. In our retrospect, therefore, through the abyss of time past our view must be bounded by that state of the earth when it is revolving in this critical period. With what happened before that we shall not at present concern ourselves. Thus we look back to a time at the beginning of the present order of things, when the day was only some three or four hours long.

Let us now look at the moon, and examine where it must have been during these past ages. As the moon is gradually getting further and further from us at present, so, looking back into past time, we find that the moon was nearer and nearer to the earth the further back our view extends; in fact, concentrating our attention solely on essential features, we may say that the path of the moon is a sort of spiral which winds round and round the earth, gradually getting larger, though with extreme slowness. Looking back we see this spiral gradually coiling in and in, until in a retrospect of millions of years, instead of its distance from the earth being 240,000 miles, it must have been much less. There was a time when the moon was only 200,000 miles away; there was a time many millions of years ago, when the moon was only 100,000 miles away. Nor can we here stop our retrospect; we must look further and further back, and follow the moon's spiral path as it creeps in and in towards the earth, until at last it appears actually in contact with that great globe of ours, from which it is now separated by a quarter of a million of miles.

Surely the tides have thus led us to the knowledge of an astounding epoch in our earth's past history, when the earth is spinning round in a few hours, and when the moon is, practically speaking, in contact with it. Perhaps I should rather say, that the materials of our present moon were in this situation, for we would hardly be entitled to assume that the moon then possessed the same globular form in which we see it now. To form a just apprehension of the true nature of both bodies at this critical epoch, we must study their concurrent history as it is disclosed to us by a totally different line of reasoning.

Drop, then, for a moment all thought of tides, and let us bring to our aid the laws of heat, which will disclose certain facts in the ancient history of the earth-moon system perhaps as astounding as those to which the tides have conducted us. In one respect we may compare these laws of heat with the laws of the tides; they are both alike non-periodic, their effects are cumulative from age to age, and imagination can hardly even impose a limit to the magnificence of the works they can accomplish. Our argument from heat is founded on a very simple matter. It is quite obvious that a heated body tends to grow cold. I am not now speaking of fires or of actual combustion whereby heat is produced; I am speaking merely of such heat as would be possessed by a red-hot poker after being taken from the fire, or by an iron casting after the metal has been run into the mould. In such cases as this the general law holds good, that the heated body tends to grow cold. The cooling may be retarded no doubt if the passage of heat from the body is impeded. We can, for instance, retard the cooling of a teapot by the well-known practice of putting a cosy upon it; but the law remains that, slowly or quickly, the heated body will tend to grow colder. It seems almost puerile to insist with any emphasis on a point so obvious as this, but yet I frequently find that people do not readily apprehend all the gigantic consequences that can flow from a principle so simple. It is true that a poker cools when taken from the fire; we also find that a gigantic casting weighing many tons will grow gradually cold, though it may require days to do so. The same principle will extend to any object, no matter how vast it may happen to be. Were that great casting 2000 miles in diameter, or were it 8000 miles in diameter, it will still steadily part with its heat, though no doubt the process of cooling becomes greatly prolonged with an increase in the dimensions of the heated body. The earth and the moon cannot escape from the application of these simple principles.

Let us first speak of the earth. There are multitudes of volcanoes in action at the present moment in various countries upon this earth. Now whatever explanation may be given of the approximate cause of the volcanic phenomena, there can be no doubt that they indicate the existence of heat in the interior of the earth. It may possibly be, as some have urged, that the volcanoes are merely vents for comparatively small masses of subterranean molten matter; it may be, as others more reasonably, in my opinion, believe, that the whole interior of the earth is at the temperature of incandescence, and that the eruptions of volcanoes and the shocks of earthquakes are merely consequences of the gradual shrinkage of the external crust, as it continually strives to accommodate itself to the lessening bulk of the fluid interior. But whichever view we may adopt, it is at least obvious that the earth is in part, at all events, a heated body, and that the heat is not in the nature of a combustion, generated and sustained by the progress of chemical action. No doubt there may be local phenomena of this description, but by far the larger proportion of the earth's internal heat seems merely the fervour of incandescence. It is to be likened to the heat of the molten iron which has been run into the sand, rather than to the glowing coals in the furnace in which that iron has been smelted.

There is one volcanic outbreak of such exceptional interest in these modern times that I cannot refrain from alluding to it. Doubtless every one has heard of that marvellous eruption of Krakatoa, which occurred on August 26th and 27th, 1883, and gives a unique chapter in the history of volcanic phenomena. Not alone was the eruption of Krakatoa alarming in its more ordinary manifestations, but it was unparalleled both in the vehemence of the shock and in the distance to which the effects of the great eruption were propagated. I speak not now of the great waves of ocean that inundated the coasts of Sumatra and Java, and swept away thirty-six thousand people, nor do I allude to the intense darkness which spread for one hundred and eighty miles or more all round. I shall just mention the three most important phenomena, which demonstrate the energy which still resides in the interior of our earth. Place a terrestrial globe before you, and fix your attention on the Straits of Sunda; think also of the great atmospheric ocean some two or three hundred miles deep which envelopes our earth. When a pebble is tossed into a pond a beautiful series of concentric ripples diverge from it; so when Krakatoa burst up in that mighty catastrophe, a series of gigantic waves were propagated through the air; they embraced the whole globe, converged to the antipodes of Krakatoa, thence again diverged, and returned to the seat of the volcano; a second time the mighty series of atmospheric ripples spread to the antipodes, and a second time returned. Seven times did that series of waves course over our globe, and leave their traces on every self-recording barometer that our earth possesses. Thirty-six hours were occupied in the journey of the great undulation from Krakatoa to its antipodes. Perhaps even more striking was the extent of our earth's surface over which the noise of the great explosion spread. At Batavia, ninety-four miles away, the concussions were simply deafening; at Macassar, in Celebes, two steamers were sent out to investigate the explosions which were heard, little thinking that they came from Krakatoa, nine hundred and sixty-nine miles away. Alarming sounds were heard over the island of Timor, one thousand three hundred and fifty-one miles away from Krakatoa. Diego Garcia in the Chogos islands is two thousand two hundred and sixty-seven miles from Krakatoa, but the thunders traversed even this distance, and were attributed to some ship in distress, for which a search was made. Most astounding of all, there is undoubted evidence that the sound of the mighty explosion was propagated across nearly the entire Indian ocean, and was heard in the island of Rodriguez, almost three thousand miles away. The immense distance over which this sound journeyed will be appreciated by the fact, that the noise did not reach Rodriguez until four hours after it had left Krakatoa. In fact, it would seem that if Vesuvius were to explode with the same vehemence as Krakatoa did, the thunders of the explosion might penetrate so far as to be heard in London.

There is another and more beautiful manifestation of the world-wide significance of the Krakatoa outbreak. The vast column of smoke and ashes ascended twenty miles high in the air, and commenced a series of voyages around the equatorial regions of the earth. In three days it crossed the Indian ocean, and was traversing equatorial Africa; then came an Atlantic voyage; and then it coursed over central America, before a Pacific voyage brought it back to its point of departure after thirteen days; then the dust started again, and was traced around another similar circuit, while it was even tracked for a considerable time in placing the third girdle round the earth. Strange blue suns and green moons and other mysterious phenomena marked the progress of this vast volcanic cloud. At last the cloud began to lose its density, the dust spread more widely over the tropics, became diffused through the temperate regions, and then the whole earth was able to participate in the glories of Krakatoa. The marvellous sunsets in the autumn of 1883 are attributable to this cause; and thus once again was brought before us the fact that the earth still contains large stores of thermal energy.

Attempts are sometimes made to explain volcanic phenomena on the supposition that they are entirely of a local character, and that we are not entitled to infer the incandescent nature of the earth's interior from the fact that volcanic outbreaks occasionally happen. For our present purpose this point is immaterial, though I must say it appears to me unreasonable to deny that the interior of the earth is in a most highly heated state. Every test we can apply shows us the existence of internal heat. Setting aside the more colossal phenomena of volcanic eruptions, we have innumerable minor manifestations of its presence. Are there not geysers and hot springs in many parts of the earth? and have we not all over our globe invariable testimony confirming the statement, that the deeper we go down beneath its surface the hotter does the temperature become? Every miner is familiar with these facts; he knows that the deeper are his shafts the warmer it is down below, and the greater the necessity for providing increased ventilation to keep the temperature within a limit that shall be suitable for the workmen. All these varied classes of phenomena admit solely of one explanation, and that is, that the interior of the earth contains vast stores of incandescent heat.

We now apply to our earth the same reasoning which we should employ on a poker taken from the fire, or on a casting drawn from the foundry. Such bodies will lose their heat by radiation and conduction. The earth is therefore losing its heat. No doubt the process is an extremely slow one. The mighty reservoirs of internal heat are covered by vast layers of rock, which are such excellent non-conductors that they offer every possible impediment to the leakage of heat from the interior to the surface. We coat our steam-pipes over with non-conducting material, and this can now be done so successfully, that it is beginning to be found economical to transmit steam for a very long distance through properly protected pipes. But no non-conducting material that we can manufacture can be half so effective as the shell of rock twenty miles or more in thickness, which secures the heated interior of the earth from rapid loss by radiation into space. Even were the earth's surface solid copper or solid silver, both most admirable conductors of heat, the cooling down of this vast globe would be an extremely tardy process; how much more tardy must it therefore be when such exceedingly bad conductors as rocks form the envelope? How imperfectly material of this kind will transmit heat is strikingly illustrated by the great blast iron furnaces which are so vitally important in one of England's greatest manufacturing industries. A glowing mass of coal and iron ore and limestone is here urged to vivid incandescence by a blast of air itself heated to an intense temperature. The mighty heat thus generated—sufficient as it is to detach the iron from its close alliance with the earthy materials and to render the metal out as a pure stream rushing white-hot from the vent—is sufficiently confined by a few feet of brick-work, one side of which is therefore at the temperature of molten iron, while the other is at a temperature not much exceeding that of the air. We may liken the brick-work of a blast furnace to the rocky covering of the earth; in each case an exceedingly high temperature on one side is compatible with a very moderate temperature on the other.

Although the drainage of heat away from the earth's interior to its surface, and its loss there by radiation into space, is an extremely tardy process, yet it is incessantly going on. We have here again to note the ability for gigantic effect which a small but continually operating cause may have, provided it always tends in the same direction. The earth is incessantly losing heat; and though in a day, a week, or a year the loss may not be very significant, yet when we come to deal with periods of time that have to be reckoned by millions of years, it may well be that the effect of a small loss of heat per annum can, in the course of these ages, reach unimagined dimensions. Suppose, for instance, that the earth experienced a fall of temperature in its interior which amounted to only one-thousandth of a degree in a year. So minute a quantity as this is imperceptible. Even in a century, the loss of heat at this rate would be only the tenth of a degree. There would be no possible way of detecting it; the most careful thermometer could not be relied on to tell us for a certainty that the temperature of the hot waters of Bath had declined the tenth of a degree; and I need hardly say, that the fall of a tenth of a degree would signify nothing in the lavas of Vesuvius, nor influence the thunders of Krakatoa by one appreciable note. So far as a human life or the life of the human race is concerned, the decline of a tenth of a degree per century in the earth's internal heat is absolutely void of significance. I cannot, however, impress upon you too strongly, that the mere few thousands of years with which human history is cognizant are an inappreciable moment in comparison with those unmeasured millions of years which geology opens out to us, or with those far more majestic periods which the astronomer demands for the events he has to describe.

An annual loss of even one-thousandth of a degree will be capable of stupendous achievements when supposed to operate during epochs of geological magnitude. In fact, its effects would be so vast, that it seems hardly credible that the present loss of heat from the earth should be so great as to amount to an abatement of one-thousandth of a degree per annum, for that would mean, that in a thousand years the earth's temperature would decline by one degree, and in a million years the decline would amount to a thousand degrees. At all events, the illustration may suffice to show, that the fact that we are not able to prove by our instruments that the earth is cooling is no argument whatever against the inevitable law, that the earth, like every other heated body, must be tending towards a lower temperature.

Without pretending to any numerical accuracy, we can at all events give a qualitative if not a quantitative analysis of the past history of our earth, in so far as its changes of temperature are concerned. A million years ago our earth doubtless contained appreciably more heat than it does at present. I speak not now, of course, of mere solar heat—of the heat which gives us the vicissitudes of seasons; I am only referring to the original hoard of internal heat which is gradually waning. As therefore our retrospect extends through millions and millions of past ages, we see our earth ever growing warmer and warmer the further and further we look back. There was a time when those heated strata which we have now to go deep down in mines to find were considerably nearer the surface. At present, were it not for the sun, the heat of the earth where we stand would hardly be appreciably above the temperature of infinite space—perhaps some 200 or 300 degrees below zero. But there must have been a time when there was sufficient internal heat to maintain the exterior at a warm and indeed at a very hot temperature. Nor is there any bound to our retrospect arising from the operation or intervention of any other agent, so far as we know; consequently the hotter and the hotter grows the surface the further and the further we look back. Nor can we stop until, at an antiquity so great that I do not venture on any estimate of the date, we discover that this earth must have consisted of glowing hot material. Further and further we can look back, and we see the rocks—or whatever other term we choose to apply to the then ingredients of the earth's crust—in a white-hot and even in a molten condition. Thus our argument has led us to the belief that time was when this now solid globe of ours was a ball of white-hot fluid.

On the argument which I have here used there are just two remarks which I particularly wish to make. Note in the first place, that our reasoning is founded on the fact that the earth is at present, to some extent, heated. It matters not whether this heat be much or little; our argument would have been equally valid had the earth only contained a single particle of its mass at a somewhat higher temperature than the temperature of space. I am, of course, not alluding in this to heat which can be generated by combustion. The other point to which I refer is to remove an objection which may possibly be urged against this line of reasoning. I have argued that because the temperature is continually increasing as we look backwards, that therefore a very great temperature must once have prevailed. Without some explanation this argument is not logically complete. There is, it is well known, the old paradox of the geometric series; you may add a farthing to a halfpenny, and then a half-farthing, and then a quarter-farthing, and then the eighth of a farthing, followed by the sixteenth, and thirty-second, and so on, halving the contribution each time. Now no matter how long you continue this process, even if you went on with it for ever, and thus made an infinite number of contributions, you would never accomplish the task of raising the original halfpenny to the dignity of a penny. An infinite number of quantities may therefore, as this illustration shows, never succeed in attaining any considerable dimensions. Our argument, however, with regard to the increase of heat as we look back is the very opposite of this. It is the essence of a cooling body to lose heat more rapidly in proportion as its temperature is greater. Thus though the one-thousandth of a degree may be all the fall of temperature that our earth now experiences in a twelvemonth, yet in those glowing days when the surface was heated to incandescence, the loss of heat per annum must have been immensely greater than it is now. It therefore follows that the rate of gain of the earth's heat as we look back must be of a different character to that of the geometric series which I have just illustrated; for each addition to the earth's heat, as we look back from year to year, must grow greater and greater, and therefore there is here no shelter for a fallacy in the argument on which the existence of high temperature of primeval times is founded.

The reasoning that I have applied to our earth may be applied in almost similar words to the moon. It is true that we have not any knowledge of the internal nature of the moon at present, nor are we able to point to any active volcanic phenomena at present in progress there in support of the contention that the moon either has now internal heat, or did once possess it. It is, however, impossible to deny the evidence which the lunar craters afford as to the past existence of volcanic activity on our satellite. Heat, therefore, there was once in the moon; and accordingly we are enabled to conclude that, on a retrospect through illimitable periods of time, we must find the moon transformed from that cold and inert body she now seems to a glowing and incandescent mass of molten material. The earth therefore and the moon in some remote ages—not alone anterior to the existence of life, but anterior even to the earliest periods of which geologists have cognizance—must have been both globes of molten materials which have consolidated into the rocks of the present epoch.

We must now revert to the tidal history of the earth-moon system. Did we not show that there was a time when the earth and the moon—or perhaps, I should say, the ingredients of the earth and moon—were close together, were indeed in actual contact? We have now learned, from a wholly different line of reasoning, that in very early ages both bodies were highly heated. Here as elsewhere in this theory we can make little or no attempt to give any chronology, or to harmonize the different lines along which the course of history has run. No one can form the slightest idea as to what the temperature of the earth and of the moon must have been in those primeval ages when they were in contact. It is impossible, however, to deny that they must both have been in a very highly heated state; and everything we know of the matter inclines us to the belief that the temperature of the earth-moon system must at this critical epoch have been one of glowing incandescence and fusion. It is therefore quite possible that these bodies—the moon especially—may have then been not at all of the form we see them now. It has been supposed, and there are some grounds for the supposition, that at this initial stage of earth-moon history the moon materials did not form a globe, but were disposed in a ring which surrounded the earth, the ring being in a condition of rapid rotation. It was at a subsequent period, according to this view, that the substances in the ring gradually drew together, and then by their mutual attractions formed a globe which ultimately consolidated down into the compact moon as we now see it. I must, however, specially draw your attention to the clearly-marked line which divides the facts which dynamics have taught us from those notions which are to be regarded as more or less conjectural. Interpreting the action of the tides by the principles of dynamics, we are assured that the moon was once—or rather the materials of the moon—in the immediate vicinity of the earth. There, however, dynamics leaves us, and unfortunately withholds its accurate illumination from the events which immediately preceded that state of things.

The theory of tidal evolution which I am describing in these lectures is mainly the work of Professor George H. Darwin of Cambridge. Much of the original parts of the theory of the tides was due to Sir William Thomson, and I have also mentioned how Professor Purser contributed an important element to the dynamical theory. It is, however, Darwin who has persistently deduced from the theory all the various consequences which can be legitimately drawn from it. Darwin, for instance, pointed out that as the moon is receding from us, it must, if we only look far enough back, have been once in practical contact with the earth. It is to Darwin also that we owe many of the other parts of a fascinating theory, either in its mathematical or astronomical aspect; but I must take this opportunity of saying, that I do not propose to make Professor Darwin or any of the other mathematicians I have named responsible for all that I shall say in these lectures. I must be myself accountable for the way in which the subject is being treated, as well as for many of the illustrations used, and some of the deductions I have drawn from the subject.

It is almost unavoidable for us to make a surmise as to the cause by which the moon had come into this remarkable position close to the earth at the most critical epoch of earth-moon history.

With reference to this Professor Darwin has offered an explanation, which seems so exceedingly plausible that it is impossible to resist the notion that it must be correct. I will ask you to think of the earth not as a solid body covered largely with ocean, but as a glowing globe of molten material. In a globe of this kind it is possible for great undulations to be set up. Here is a large vase of water, and by displacing it I can cause the water to undulate with a period which depends on the size of the vessel; undulations can be set up in a bucket of water, the period of these undulations being dependent upon the dimensions of the bucket. Similarly in a vast globe of molten material certain undulations could be set up, and those undulations would have a period depending upon the dimensions of this vibrating mass. We may conjecture a mode in which such vibrations could be originated. Imagine a thin shell of rigid material which just encases the globe; suppose this be divided into four quarters, like the four quarters of an orange, and that two of these opposite quarters be rejected, leaving two quarters on the liquid. Now suppose that these two quarters be suddenly pressed in, and then be as suddenly removed—they will produce depressions, of course, on the two opposite quarters, while the uncompressed quarters will become protuberant. In virtue of the mutual attractions between the different particles of the mass, an effort will be made to restore the globular form, but this will of course rather overshoot the mark; and therefore a series of undulations will be originated by which two opposite quarters of the sphere will alternately shrink in and become protuberant. There will be a particular period to this oscillation. For our globe it would appear to be somewhere about an hour and a half or two hours; but there is necessarily a good deal of uncertainty about this point.

We have seen how in those primitive days the earth was spinning around very rapidly; and I have also stated that the earth might at this very critical epoch of its history be compared with a grindstone which is being driven so rapidly that it is on the very brink of rupture. It is remarkable to note, that a cause tending to precipitate a rupture of the earth was at hand. The sun then raised tides in the earth as it does at present. When the earth revolved in a period of some four hours or thereabouts, the high tides caused by the sun succeeded each other at intervals of about two hours. When I speak of tides in this respect, of course I am not alluding to oceanic tides; these were the days long before ocean existed, at least in the liquid form. The tides I am speaking about were raised in the fluids and materials which then constituted the whole of the glowing earth; those tides rose and fell under the throb produced by the sun, just as truly as tides produced in an ordinary ocean. But now note the significant coincidence between the period of the throb produced by the sun-raised tides, and that natural period of vibration which belonged to our earth as a mass of molten material. It therefore follows, that the impulse given to the earth by the sun harmonized in time with that period in which the earth itself was disposed to oscillate. A well-known dynamical principle here comes into play. You see a heavy weight hanging by a string, and in my hand I hold a little slip of wood no heavier than a common pencil; ordinarily speaking, I might strike that heavy weight with this slip of wood, and no effect is produced; but if I take care to time the little blows that I give so that they shall harmonize with the vibrations which the weight is naturally disposed to make, then the effect of many small blows will be cumulative, so much so, that after a short time the weight begins to respond to my efforts, and now you see it has acquired a swing of very considerable amplitude. In Professor Fitzgerald's address to the British Association at Bath last autumn, he gives an account of those astounding experiments of Hertz, in which well-timed electrical impulses broke down an air resistance, and revealed to us ethereal vibrations which could never have been made manifest except by the principle we are here discussing. The ingenious conjecture has been made, that when the earth was thrown into tidal vibrations in those primeval days, these slight vibrations, harmonizing as they did with the natural period of the earth, gradually acquired amplitude; the result being that the pulse of each successive vibration increased at last to such an extent that the earth separated under the stress, and threw off a portion of those semi-fluid materials of which it was composed. In process of time these rejected portions contracted together, and ultimately formed that moon we now see. Such is the origin of the moon which the modern theory of tidal evolution has presented to our notice.

There are two great epochs in the evolution of the earth-moon system—two critical epochs which possess a unique dynamical significance; one of these periods was early in the beginning, while the other cannot arrive for countless ages yet to come. I am aware that in discussing this matter I am entering somewhat largely into mathematical principles; I must only endeavour to state the matter as succinctly as the subject will admit.

In an earlier part of this lecture I have explained how, during all the development of the earth-moon system, the quantity of moment of momentum remains unaltered. The moment of momentum of the earth's rotation added to the moment of momentum of the moon's revolution remains constant; if one of these quantities increase the other must decrease, and the progress of the evolution will have this result, that energy shall be gradually lost in consequence of the friction produced by the tides. The investigation is one appropriate for mathematical formulæ, such as those that can be found in Professor Darwin's memoirs; but nature has in this instance dealt kindly with us, for she has enabled an abstruse mathematical principle to be dealt with in a singularly clear and concise manner. We want to obtain a definite view of the alteration in the energy of the system which shall correspond to a small change in the velocity of the earth's rotation, the moon of course accommodating itself so that the moment of momentum shall be preserved unaltered. We can use for this purpose an angular velocity which represents the excess of the earth's rotation over the angular revolution of the moon; it is, in fact, the apparent angular velocity with which the moon appears to move round the heavens. If we represent by N the angular velocity of the earth, and by M the angular velocity of the moon in its orbit round the earth, the quantity we desire to express is N—M; we shall call it the relative rotation. The mathematical theorem which tells us what we want can be enunciated in a concise manner as follows. The alteration of the energy of the system may be expressed by multiplying the relative rotation by the change in the earth's angular velocity. This result will explain many points to us in the theory, but just at present I am only going to make a single inference from it.

I must advert for a moment to the familiar conception of a maximum or a minimum. If a magnitude be increasing, that is, gradually growing greater and greater, it has obviously not attained a maximum so long as the growth is in progress. Nor if the object be actually decreasing can it be said to be at a maximum either; for then it was greater a second ago than it is now, and therefore it cannot be at a maximum at present. We may illustrate this by the familiar example of a stone thrown up into the air; at first it gradually rises, being higher at each instant than it was previously, until a culminating point is reached, when just for a moment the stone is poised at the summit of its path ere it commences its return to earth again. In this case the maximum point is obtained when the stone, having ceased to ascend, and not having yet commenced to descend, is momentarily at rest.

The same principles apply to the determination of a minimum. As long as the magnitude is declining the minimum has not been reached; it is only when the decline has ceased, and an increase is on the point of setting in, that the minimum can be said to be touched.

The earth-moon system contains at any moment a certain store of energy, and to every conceivable condition of the earth-moon system a certain quantity of energy is appropriate. It is instructive for us to study the different positions in which the earth and the moon might lie, and to examine the different quantities of energy which the system will contain in each of those varied positions. It is however to be understood that the different cases all presuppose the same total moment of momentum.

Among the different cases that can be imagined, those will be of special interest in which the total quantity of energy in the system is a maximum or a minimum. We must for this purpose suppose the system gradually to run through all conceivable changes, with the earth and moon as near as possible, and as far as possible, and in all intermediate positions; we must also attribute to the earth every variety in the velocity of its rotation which is compatible with the preservation of the moment of momentum. Beginning then with the earth's velocity of rotation at its lowest, we may suppose it gradually and continually increased, and, as we have already seen, the change in the energy of the system is to be expressed by multiplying the relative rotation into the change of the earth's angular velocity. It follows from the principles we have already explained, that the maximum or minimum energy is attained at the moment when the alteration is zero. It therefore follows, that the critical periods of the system will arise when the relative rotation is zero, that is, when the earth's rotation on its axis is performed with a velocity equal to that with which the moon revolves around the earth. This is truly a singular condition of the earth-moon system; the moon in such a case would revolve around the earth as if the two bodies were bound together by rigid bonds into what was practically a single solid body. At the present moment no doubt to some extent this condition is realized, because the moon always turns the same face to the earth (a point on which we shall have something to say later on); but in the original condition of the earth-moon system, the earth would also constantly direct the same face to the moon, a condition of things which is now very far from being realized.

It can be shown from the mathematical nature of the problem that there are four states of the earth-moon system in which this condition may be realized, and which are also compatible with the conservation of the moment of momentum. We can express what this condition implies in a somewhat more simple manner. Let us understand by the day the period of the earth's rotation on its axis, whatever that may be, and let us understand by the month the period of revolution of the moon around the earth, whatever value it may have; then the condition of maximum or minimum energy is attained when the day and the month have become equal to each other. Of the four occasions mathematically possible in which the day and the month can be equal, there are only two which at present need engage our attention—one of these occurred near the beginning of the earth and moon's history, the other remains to be approached in the immeasurably remote future. The two remaining solutions are futile, being what the mathematician would describe as imaginary.

There is a fundamental difference between the dynamical conditions in these critical epochs—in one of them the energy of the system has attained a maximum value, and in the other the energy of the system is at a minimum value. It is impossible to over-estimate the significance of these two states of the system.

I may recall the fundamental notion which every one has learned in mechanics, as to the difference between stable and unstable equilibrium. The conceivable possibility of making an egg stand on its end is a practical impossibility, because nature does not like unstable equilibrium, and a body departs therefrom on the least disturbance; on the other hand, stable equilibrium is the position in which nature tends to place everything. A log of wood floating on a river might conceivably float in a vertical position with its end up out of the water, but you never could succeed in so balancing it, because no matter how carefully you adjusted the log, it would almost instantly turn over when you left it free; on the other hand, when the log floats naturally on the water it assumes a horizontal position, to which, when momentarily displaced therefrom, it will return if permitted to do so. We have here an illustration of the contrast between stable and unstable equilibrium. It will be found generally that a body is in equilibrium when its centre of gravity is at its highest point or at its lowest point; there is, however, this important difference, that when the centre of gravity is highest the equilibrium is unstable, and when the centre of gravity is lowest the equilibrium is stable. The potential energy of an egg poised on its end in unstable equilibrium is greater than when it lies on its side in stable equilibrium. In fact, energy must be expended to raise the egg from the horizontal position to the vertical; while, on the other hand, work could conceivably be done by the egg when it passes from the vertical position to the horizontal. Speaking generally, we may say that the stable position indicates low energy, while a redundancy of that valuable agent is suggestive of instability.

We may apply similar principles to the consideration of the earth-moon system. It is true that we have here a series of dynamical phenomena, while the illustrations I have given of stable and unstable equilibrium relate only to statical problems; but we can have dynamical stability and dynamical instability, just as we can have stable and unstable equilibrium. Dynamical instability corresponds with the maximum of energy, and dynamical stability to the minimum of energy.

At that primitive epoch, when the energy of the earth-moon system was a maximum, the condition was one of dynamical instability; it was impossible that it should last. But now mark how truly critical an occurrence this must have been in the history of the earth-moon system, for have I not already explained that it is a necessary condition of the progress of tidal evolution that the energy of the system should be always declining? But here our retrospect has conducted us back to a most eventful crisis, in which the energy was a maximum, and therefore cannot have been immediately preceded by a state in which the energy was greater still; it is therefore impossible for the tidal evolution to have produced this state of things; some other influence must have been in operation at this beginning of the earth-moon system.

Thus there can be hardly a doubt that immediately preceding the critical epoch the moon originated from the earth in the way we have described. Note also that this condition, being one of maximum energy, was necessarily of dynamical instability, it could not last; the moon must adopt either of two courses—it must tumble back on the earth, or it must start outwards. Now which course was the moon to adopt? The case is analogous to that of an egg standing on its end—it will inevitably tumble one way or the other. Some infinitesimal cause will produce a tendency towards one side, and to that side accordingly the egg will fall. The earth-moon system was similarly in an unstable state, an infinitesimal cause might conceivably decide the fate of the system. We are necessarily in ignorance of what the determining cause might have been, but the effect it produced is perfectly clear; the moon did not again return to its mother earth, but set out on that mighty career which is in progress to-day.

Let it be noted that these critical epochs in the earth-moon history arise when and only when there is an absolute identity between the length of the month and the length of the day. It may be proper therefore that I should provide a demonstration of the fact, that the identity between these two periods must necessarily have occurred at a very early period in the evolution.

The law of Kepler, which asserts that the square of the periodic time is proportioned to the cube of the mean distance, is in its ordinary application confined to a comparison between the revolutions of the several planets about the sun. The periodic time of each planet is connected with its average distance by this law; but there is another application of Kepler's law which gives us information of the distance and the period of the moon in former stages of the earth-moon history. Although the actual path of the moon is of course an ellipse, yet that ellipse is troubled, as is well known, by many disturbing forces, and from this cause alone the actual path of the moon is far from being any of those simple curves with which we are so well acquainted. Even were the earth and the moon absolutely rigid particles, perturbations would work all sorts of small changes in the pliant curve. The phenomena of tidal evolution impart an additional element of complexity into the actual shape of the moon's path. We now see that the ellipse is not merely subject to incessant deflections of a periodic nature, it also undergoes a gradual contraction as we look back through time past; but we may, with all needful accuracy for our present purpose, think of the path of the moon as a circle, only we must attribute to that circle a continuous contraction of its radius the further and the further we look back. The alteration in the radius will be even so slow, that the moon will accomplish thousands of revolutions around the earth without any appreciable alteration in the average distance of the two bodies. We can therefore think of the moon as revolving at every epoch in a circle of special radius, and as accomplishing that revolution in a special time. With this understanding we can now apply Kepler's law to the several stages of the moon's past history. The periodic time of each revolution, and the mean distance at which that revolution was performed, will be always connected together by the formula of Kepler. Thus to take an instance in the very remote past. Let us suppose that the moon was at one hundred and twenty thousand miles instead of two hundred and forty thousand, that is, at half its present distance. Applying the law of Kepler, we see that the time of revolution must then have been only about ten days instead of the twenty-seven it is now. Still further, let us suppose that the moon revolves in an orbit with one-tenth of the diameter it has at present, then the cube of 10 being 1000, and the square root of 1000 being 31.6, it follows that the month must have been less than the thirty-first part of what it is at present, that is, it must have been considerably less than one of our present days. Thus you see the month is growing shorter and shorter the further we look back, the day is also growing shorter and shorter; but still I think we can show that there must have been a time when the month will have been at least as short as the day. For let us take the most extreme case in which the moon shall have made the closest possible approximation to the earth. Two globes in contact will have a distance between their centres which is equal to the sum of their radii. Take the earth as having a radius of four thousand miles, and the moon a radius of one thousand miles, the two centres must at their shortest distance be five thousand miles apart, that is, the moon must then be at the forty-eighth part of its present distance from the earth. Now the cube of 48 is 110,592, and the square root of 110,592 is nearly 333, therefore the length of the month will be one-three hundred and thirty-third part of the duration of the month at present; in other words, the moon must revolve around the earth in a period of somewhat about two hours. It seems impossible that the day can ever have been as brief as this. We have therefore proved that, in the course of its contracting duration, the moon must have overtaken the contracting day, and that therefore there must have been a time when the moon was in the vicinity of the earth, and having a day and month of equal period. Thus we have shown that the critical condition of dynamical instability must have occurred in the early period of the earth-moon history, if the agents then in operation were those which we now know. The further development of the subject must be postponed until the next lecture.

LECTURE II.

Starting from that fitting commencement of earth-moon history which the critical epoch affords, we shall now describe the dynamical phenomena as the tidal evolution progressed. The moon and the earth initially moved as a solid body, each bending the same face towards the other; but as the moon retreated, and as tides began to be raised on the earth, the length of the day began to increase, as did also the length of the month. We know, however, that the month increased more rapidly than the day, so that a time was reached when the month was twice as long as the day; and still both periods kept on increasing, but not at equal rates, for in progress of time the month grew so much more rapidly than the day, that many days had to elapse while the moon accomplished a single revolution. It is, however, only necessary for us to note those stages of the mighty progress which correspond to special events. The first of such stages was attained when the month assumed its maximum ratio to the day. At this time, the month was about twenty-nine days, and the epoch appears to have occurred at a comparatively recent date if we use such standards of time as tidal evolution requires; though measured by historical standards, the epoch is of incalculable antiquity. I cannot impress upon you too often the enormous magnitude of the period of time which these phenomena have required for their evolution. Professor Darwin's theory affords but little information on this point, and the utmost we can do is to assign a minor limit to the period through which tidal evolution has been in progress. It is certain that the birth of the moon must have occurred at least fifty million years ago, but probably the true period is enormously greater than this. If indeed we choose to add a cipher or two to the figure just printed, I do not think there is anything which could tell us that we have over-estimated the mark. Therefore, when I speak of the epoch in which the month possessed the greatest number of days as a recent one, it must be understood that I am merely speaking of events in relation to the order of tidal evolution. Viewed from this standpoint, we can show that the epoch is a recent one in the following manner. At present the month consists of a little more than twenty-seven days, but at this maximum period to which I have referred the month was about twenty-nine days; from that it began to decline, and the decline cannot have proceeded very far, for even still there are only two days less in the month than at the time when the month had the greatest number of days. It thus follows that the present epoch—the human epoch, as we may call it—in the history of the earth has fallen at a time when the progress of tidal evolution is about half-way between the initial and the final stage. I do not mean half-way in the sense of actual measurement of years; indeed, from this point it would seem that we cannot yet be nearly half-way, for, vast as are the periods of time that have elapsed since the moon first took its departure from the earth, they fall far short of that awful period of time which will intervene between the present moment and the hour when the next critical state of earth-moon history shall have been attained. In that state the day is destined once again to be equal to the month, just as was the case in the initial stage. The half-way stage will therefore in one sense be that in which the proportion of the month to the day culminates. This is the stage which we have but lately passed; and thus it is that at present we may be said to be almost half-way through the progress of tidal evolution.

My narrative of the earth-moon evolution must from this point forward cease to be retrospective. Having begun at that critical moment when the month and day were first equal, we have traced the progress of events to the present hour. What we have now to say is therefore a forecast of events yet to come. So far as we can tell, no agent is likely to interfere with the gradual evolution caused by the tides, which dynamical principles have disclosed to us. As the years roll on, or perhaps, I should rather say, as thousands of years and millions of years roll on, the day will continue to elongate, or the earth to rotate more slowly on its axis. But countless ages must elapse before another critical stage of the history shall be reached. It is needless for me to ponder over the tedious process by which this interesting epoch is reached. I shall rather sketch what the actual condition of our system will be when that moment shall have arrived. The day will then have expanded from the present familiar twenty-four hours up to a day more than twice, more than five, even more than fifty times its present duration. In round numbers, we may say that this great day will occupy one thousand four hundred of our ordinary hours. To realize the critical nature of the situation then arrived at, we must follow the corresponding evolution through which the moon passes. From its present distance of two hundred and forty thousand miles, the moon will describe an ever-enlarging orbit; and as it does so the duration of the month will also increase, until at last a point will be reached when the month has become more than double its present length, and has attained the particular value of one thousand four hundred hours. We are specially to observe that this one-thousand four-hundred-hour month will be exactly reached when the day has also expanded to one thousand four hundred hours; and the essence of this critical condition, which may be regarded as a significant point of tidal evolution, is that the day and the month have again become equal. The day and the month were equal at the beginning, the day and the month will be equal at the end. Yet how wide is the difference between the beginning and the end. The day or the month at the end is some hundreds of times as long as the month or the day at the beginning.

I have already fully explained how, in any stage of the evolutionary progress in which the day and the month became equal, the energy of the system attained a maximum or a minimum value. At the beginning the energy was a maximum; at the end the energy will be a minimum. The most important consequences follow from this consideration. I have already shown that a condition of maximum energy corresponded to dynamic instability. Thus we saw that the earth-moon history could not have commenced without the intervention of some influence other than tides at the beginning. Now let us learn what the similar doctrine has to tell us with regard to the end. The condition then arrived at is one of dynamical stability; for suppose that the system were to receive a slight alteration, by which the moon went out a little further, and thus described a larger orbit, and so performed more than its share of the moment of spin. Then the earth would have to do a little less spinning, because, under all circumstances, the total quantity of spin must be preserved unaltered. But the energy being at a minimum, such a small displacement must of course produce a state of things in which the energy would be increased. Or if we conceived the moon to come in towards the earth, the moon would then contribute less to the total moment of momentum. It would therefore be incumbent on the earth to do more; and accordingly the velocity of the earth's rotation would be augmented. But this arrangement also could only be produced by the addition of some fresh energy to the system, because the position from which the system is supposed to have been disturbed is one of minimum energy.

No disturbance of the system from this final position is therefore conceivable, unless some energy can be communicated to it. But this will demonstrate the utter incompetency of the tides to shift the system by a hair's breadth from this position; for it is of the essence of the tides to waste energy by friction. And the transformations of the system which the tides have caused are invariably characterized by a decline of energy, the movements being otherwise arranged so that the total moment of momentum shall be preserved intact. Note, how far we were justified in speaking of this condition as a final one. It is final so far as the lunar tides are concerned; and were the system to be screened from all outer interference, this accommodation between the earth and the moon would be eternal.

There is indeed another way of demonstrating that a condition of the system in which the day has assumed equality with the month must necessarily be one of dynamical equilibrium. We have shown that the energy which the tides demand is derived not from the mere fact that there are high tides and low tides, but from the circumstance that these tides do rise and fall; that in falling and rising they do produce currents; and it is these currents which generate the friction by which the earth's velocity is slowly abated, its energy wasted, and no doubt ultimately dissipated as heat. If therefore we can make the ebbing and the flowing of the tides to cease, then our argument will disappear. Thus suppose, for the sake of illustration, that at a moment when the tides happened to be at high water in the Thames, such a change took place in the behaviour of the moon that the water always remained full in the Thames, and at every other spot on the earth remained fixed at the exact height which it possessed at this particular moment. There would be no more tidal friction, and therefore the system would cease to course through that series of changes which the existence of tidal friction necessitates.

But if the tide is always to be full in the Thames, then the moon must be always in the same position with respect to the meridian, that is, the moon must always be fixed in the heavens over London. In fact, the moon must then revolve around the earth just as fast as London does—the month must have the same length as the day. The earth must then show the same face constantly to the moon, just as the moon always does show the same face towards the earth; the two globes will in fact revolve as if they were connected with invisible bonds, which united them into a single rigid body.

We need therefore feel no surprise at the cessation of the progress of tidal evolution when the month and the day are equal, for then the movement of moon-raised tides has ceased. No doubt the same may be said of the state at the beginning of the history, when the day and the month had the brief and equal duration of a few hours. While the equality of the two periods lasted there could be no tides, and therefore no progress in the direction of tidal evolution. There is, however, the profound difference of stability and instability between the two cases; the most insignificant disturbance of the system at the initial stage was sufficient to precipitate the revolving moon from its condition of dynamical equilibrium, and to start the course of tidal evolution in full vigour. If, however, any trifling derangement should take place in the last condition of the system, so that the month and the day departed slightly from equality, there would instantly be an ebbing and a flowing of the tides; and the friction generated by these tides would operate to restore the equality because this condition is one of dynamical stability.

It will thus be seen with what justice we can look forward to the day and month each of fourteen hundred hours as a finale to the progress of the luni-tidal evolution. Throughout the whole of this marvellous series of changes it is always necessary to remember the one constant and invariable element—the moment of momentum of the system which tides cannot alter. Whatever else the friction can have done, however fearful may have been the loss of energy by the system, the moment of momentum which the system had at the beginning it preserves unto the end. This it is which chiefly gives us the numerical data on which we have to rely for the quantitative features of tidal evolution.

We have made so many demands in the course of these lectures on the capacity of tidal friction to accomplish startling phenomena in the evolution of the earth-moon system, that it is well for us to seek for any evidence that may otherwise be obtainable as to the capacity of tides for the accomplishment of gigantic operations. I do not say that there is any doubt which requires to be dispelled by such evidence, for as to the general outlines of the doctrine of tidal evolution which has been here sketched out there can be no reasonable ground for mistrust; but nevertheless it is always desirable to widen our comprehension of any natural phenomena by observing collateral facts. Now there is one branch of tidal action to which I have as yet only in the most incidental way referred. We have been speaking of the tides in the earth which are made to ebb and flow by the action of the moon; we have now to consider the tides in the moon, which are there excited by the action of the earth. For between these two bodies there is a reciprocity of tidal-making energy—each of them is competent to raise tides in the other. As the moon is so small in comparison with the earth, and as the tides on the moon are of but little significance in the progress of tidal evolution, it has been permissible for us to omit them from our former discussion. But it is these tides on the moon which will afford us a striking illustration of the competency of tides for stupendous tasks. The moon presents a monument to show what tides are able to accomplish.

Fig. 3.—The Moon.

I must first, however, explain a difficulty which is almost sure to suggest itself when we speak of tides on the moon. I shall be told that the moon contains no water on its surface, and how then, it will be said, can tides ebb and flow where there is no sea to be disturbed? There are two answers to this difficulty; it is no doubt true that the moon seems at present entirely devoid of water in so far as its surface is exposed to us, but it is by no means certain that the moon was always in this destitute condition. There are very large features marked on its map as “seas”; these regions are of a darker hue than the rest of the moon's surface, they are large objects often many hundreds of miles in diameter, and they form, in fact, those dark patches on the brilliant surface which are conspicuous to the unaided eye, and are represented in Fig. 3. Viewed in a telescope these so-called seas, while clearly possessing no water at the present time, are yet widely different from the general aspect of the moon's surface. It has often been supposed that great oceans once filled these basins, and a plausible explanation has even been offered as to how the waters they once contained could have vanished. It has been thought that as the mineral substances deep in the interior of our satellite assumed the crystalline form during the progress of cooling, the demand for water of crystallization required for incorporation with the minerals was so great that the oceans of the moon became entirely absorbed. It is, however, unnecessary for our present argument that this theory should be correct. Even if there never was a drop of water found on our satellite, the tides in its molten materials would be quite sufficient for our purpose; anything that tides could accomplish would be done more speedily by vast tides of flowing lava than by merely oceanic tides.

There can be no doubt that tides raised on the moon by the earth would be greater than the tides raised on the earth by the moon. The question is, however, not a very simple one, for it depends on the masses of both bodies as well as on their relative dimensions. In so far as the masses are concerned, the earth being more than eighty times as heavy as the moon, the tides would on this account be vastly larger on the moon than on the earth. On the other hand, the moon's diameter being much less than that of the earth, the efficiency of a tide-producing body in its action on the moon would be less than that of the same body at the same distance in its action on the earth; but the diminution of the tides from this cause would be not so great as their increase from the former cause, and therefore the net result would be to exhibit much greater tides on the moon than on the earth.

Suppose that the moon had been originally endowed with a rapid movement of rotation around its axis, the effect of the tides on that rotation would tend to check its velocity just in the same way as the tides on the earth have effected a continual elongation of the day. Only as the tides on the moon were so enormously great, their capacity to check the moon's speed would have corresponding efficacy. In addition to this, the mass of the moon being so small, it could only offer feeble resistance to the unceasing action of the tide, and therefore our satellite must succumb to whatever the tides desired ages before our earth would have been affected to a like extent. It must be noticed that the influence of the tidal friction is not directed to the total annihilation of the rotation of the two bodies affected by it; the velocity is only checked down until it attains such a point that the speed in which each body rotates upon its axis has become equal to that in which it revolves around the tide-producer. The practical effect of such an adjustment is to make the tide-agitated body turn a constant face towards its tormentor.