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Show [ 66 Saw at each opening cleft the furnace glow, And feas ru{h headlong on the gulphs below.- GNoMEs l how you iliriek' d ! when through the troubled air Roar' d the fierce din of elemental war ; When rofe the continents, and funk the main, 75 And Earth's huge fpherc exploding burfl: ip twain.GNoMES! how you gazed! when from her wounded iide Where now the South-Sea heaves its wafle of tide, Rofe on fwift wheels the MooN's refulgent car, Circling the folar orb, a :Gfler-fiar, Dimpled with vales, with iliining hills embofs' d, And roll' d round Earth her airlefs realms of fro ft. 'So The moon's refulgent car. 1. 79· See additional notes, No. XV. on folar volcanos. Her airlejs realmr offro.fl. l. 82. If the moon had no atmofphere at the time of its elevation from the earth; or if its atmofphere was afterwards fl:olen from it by the earth's attraCtion; the >Vater on the moon would rife qHickly into vapour; and the cold produced by a certain quantity of this evaporation would congeal the remainder of it. Hence it is not probable that the moon is at prefent inhabited, but as it feems to have fuffered an~ to continue to fuffer much by volcanos, a fufficifnt quantity of air may in procefs of t1me be generated to produce an atmofphere; which may prevent its heat from fo eafily efcaping, and its water from fo eafily evaporating, and thence become fit for the produCtion of vegetables and animals. , That the moon po!Icffes little or no atmofphere is deducc:d from the undimini01ed lufl:re of the fl:ars, at the infl:ant when they emerge from behind her difk. That the [ 67 ] '' GNOMEs ! how you trembled! with the dreadful force When Earth recoiling ftagger' cl from her courfe ; When, as her Line in Dower circles fpun, And her fhock' d axis nodded from the fun, With dreadful march the accumulated main Swept her vafl . wr~cks of 1nountain, vale, and plain ; And, while new tides their fhouting floods unite, And hail their Queen, fair Regent of the night; ocean of the moon is frozen, is confirmed from there being no appearance of lunar tides; which, if they exifl:ed, would cover the part of her difk nearefl: the earth. See. note on Canto III. I. 61. When earth recoiling. I. 84. On fuppofition that the moon was thrown from the earth 'by the explofion of water or the generation of other vapours of greater power, the remaining part of the globe would recede from its orbit in one direelion as the moon rc<:: eded in another, and that in proportion to the refpeCl:ive momentum of each, ami would afterwards revolve round their common centre of gravity. • If the moon rofe from any part of the earth except exaCtly at the line or poles, the fh ock would tend to turn the axis of the earth out of its previ"ous direEt ion. And as a mafs of matter rifing from deep parts of the globe would have prev ioufly acquired lefs diurnal velocity than the earth's furface from whence it rofe, it would receive during the time of its rifing additional velocity fro:n the earth's furface, and would confequently fo much retard the motion of the earth round its axis. When the earth thus rececled the {hock would overturn all its buildings and forefls, and the water would rufh with inwnceivable violence over its furface towards the new fJtcllite, from two caufes, both by its not at firfl acquiring the velocity with which the e:mh receded, and by the attraBion of the new moon, as it leaves the earth; on thcfc acco!lnts at firfl: thc:re v, ould be but one tide till the mcon receded to a greater diflance, and the earth moving round a common centre of gravity between them, the w::~tcr on the fi rft.: farthell: fi-om the moon would acquin: a centrifug:d force in rcfpcEI: to this common centre between iti::lf ::~nd the moon. K2 |