is, its diameter is about 3 6-10 times as large as our ap- Scarcely had she awakened them, and communicated parent lunar diameter. It is always on the same parts to the whole family some portion of the fright with of the heaven, when seen from the same part of the which she was herself overwhelmed, when the spectre, moon. At and about the spot marked 1, the earth will enveloped in a shroud, and with a death-like paleness, be directly overhead; near the edges it will appear upon made its appearance, and sat down in a chair in the bedthe horizon. The libration will cause a small oscilla-room, without their having observed how it entered.tory motion to and fro on the earth, not very percepti- The worst of all was, that this chair stood by the door ble at those parts which have the earth distant from their of the bed-chamber, so that not a creature could get horizon, but which will, at some spots near the edge, away without passing close to the apparition, which rollmake the earth alternately sink below and rise above the ed its glaring eyes so frightfully, and so hideously dishorizon. In consequence of the moon having no at- torted its features, that they could not bear to look at it. mosphere, or but a very thin one, all celestial objects The master and mistress crept under the bed-clothes, must be seen with very great distinctness. covered with profuse perspiration, while the maid-servant sunk nearly insensible by the side of the bed. M. Quetelet, in his Astronomie Elementaire, Paris, 1426, a good work, which ought to be translated, has the following remarks on the appearance of the earth at the moon, which we should rather quote than vouch for, though they may possibly be well founded. "Our vast continents, our seas, even our forests, are visible to them; they perceive the enormous piles of ice collected at the poles, and the girdle of vegetation which extends on both sides of the equator, as well as the clouds which float over our heads, and sometimes hide us from them. The burning of a town or forest could not escape them, and if they had good optical instruments, they could even see the building of a new town, or the sailing of a fleet." At the same time the whole house seemed to be in an uproar; for, though they had covered themselves over head and ears, they could still hear an incessant noise and clatter, which served to increase their terror. At length all became perfectly still in the house. The landlord ventured to raise his head, and to steal a glance at the chair by the door; but behold, the ghost was gone! Sober reason began to resume its power. The poor girl was brought to herself after a good deal of shaking. In a short time, they plucked up sufficient courage to quit the bed-room, and to commence an examination of the house, which they expected to find in great disorder. Nor were their anticipations unfounded. The lunar day, as we shall afterward see, is equivalent The whole house had been stripped by artful thieves, to our actual month of 29 1-2 days: though the rota- and the gentleman had decamped without paying for his tion of the moon on her axis is performed in the side-lodging. It turned out he was no other than an accomreal month of 27 days 8 hours nearly. Hence the in-plice of the notorious Arthur Chambers, who was exehabitant of the moon sees the sun for 14 3-4 of our cuted at Tyburn in 1706, and that the supposed corps days together, which time is followed by a night of the was this arch rogue himself, who had whitened his hands same duration. Of course, the existence of any animal and face with chalk, and merely counterfeited death.like man is impossible there, as well on this account, as About midnight, he quitted the coffin, and appeared to on that of the want of an atmosphere. the maid in the kitchen. When she flew up stairs, he softly followed her, and, seated at the door of the chamber, he acted as a sentinel, so that his industrious accomplices were enabled to plunder the house without the least molestation.-Cabinet of Curiosities. The phases which the earth presents to the moon are similar in appearance to those which the moon presents to the earth, but in a different order. Thus, when it is new moon at the earth, it is full earth at the moon; and the contrary. When the moon is in her first quarter, the earth is in its third quarter, and so on; while half-moon at the earth is accompanied by half-earth at the moon. GHOST STORY. In the year 1704, a gentleman, to all appearance of large fortune, took furnished lodgings in a house in Soho square. After he had resided there some weeks with his establishment, he lost his brother, who had lived at Hampstead, and who on his death-bed particularly desired to be interred in the family vault in Westminster Abbey. The gentleman requested his landlord to permit him to bring the corpse of his brother to his lodgings, and to make arrangements there for the funeral. The landlord without hesitation signified his compli ance. The body, dressed in a white shroud, was accordingly brought in a very handsome coffin, and placed in the great dining-room. The funeral was to take place the next day, and the lodger and his servants went out to make the necessary preparations for the solemnity. He staid out late, but this was no uncommon thing. The landlord and his family conceiving that they had no occasion to wait for him, retired to bed as usual, about twelve o'clock. One maid-servant was left up to let him in, and to boil some water, which he had desired might be ready for making tea on his return. The girl was accordingly sitting alone in the kitchen, when a tall spectre-looking figure entered, and clapped itself down in a chair opposite to her. The maid was by no means one of the most timid of her sex ; but she was terrified beyond expression, lonely as she was, at this unexpected apparition. Uttering a loud scream, she flew out like an arrow at a side-door, and hurried to the chamber of her master and mistress, THE WITCH'S BRIDLE. In the steeple of Forfar is preserved a curiosity well worth the attention of tourists. It is called "The Witches' Bridle." The form of the object is very simple. A small circle of iron sufficient to enclose the head is divided into four sections, which are connected with hinges. A short chain hangs from behind. In the front, but pointing inwards, is a prong, like the rowel of an old-fashioned spur, which entered the mouth, and, by depressing the tongue, acted as a gag. The use of the thing was exactly what its name portends. By it, as with a bridle, the unfortunate old women formerly burnt at Forfar for the supposed crime of witchcraft, were led out of town to the place of execution. Its further and more important purposes were, to bind the culprit to the stake, and prevent her cries during the dreadful process of death. When all was over, the bridle used to be found among the ashes of the victim. Picture of Scotland. SAINT AGNES. THE beautiful Agnes was beheaded at the early age of thirteen, by order of Dioclesian. Her sufferings were most excruciating, from the agitation of her executioner, who wounded her head and shoulders in several places, before he could perform his office. She was descended from a Roman family of rank and opulence, and her festival is celebrated by the Romish church with great pomp and solemnity. The rural damsels in the North are said to practise some singular rites in fasting, which they call St. Agnes's fast, for the purpose of discovering their future husbands. On sweet St. Agnes' night, It is with nations as with individuals; those who know the least of others think the highest of themselves; for the whole family of pride and ignorance are incestuous, and mutually beget each other. The Chinese affect to despise European ingenuity, but they cannot mend a common watch; when it is cut of order, they say it is dead, and barter it away for a living one. The Persians think that all foreign merchants come to them from a small island in the northern waters, barren and desolate, which produces nothing good or beautiful; for why else, say they, do the Europeans fetch such things from us if they are to be had at home. The Turk will not permit the sacred cities of Mecca or Medina to be polluted by the residence or even footstep of a single Christian: and as to the grand Dairo of Japan, he is so holy that the sun is not permitted to have the honour of shining on his illustrious head. As to the king of Malacca, he styles himself lord of the winds; and the Mogul, to be equal with him, titles himself conqueror of the world, and his grandees are denominated rulers of the thunder storm and steersmen of the whirlwind: even the pride of Xerxes, who fettered the sea, and wrote his commands to Mount Athos; or of Caligula, who boasted of an intrigue with the moon-are both surpassed by the petty sovereign of an insignificant tribe in North America, who every morning stalks out of his hovel, bids the sun good-morrow, and points out to him with his finger the course he is to take for the day; and to complete this climax of pride and ignorance, it is well known that the Khan of Tartary, who does not possess a single house under the canopy of heaven, has no sooner finished his repast of mare's milk and horse flesh, than he causes a herald to proclaim from his seat, that all the princes and potentates of the earth have his permission to go to dinner. The Arab," says Zimmerman, "in the conviction that his caliph is infallible, laughs at the stupid credulity of the Tartar, who holds his lama to be immortal." Those who inhabit Mount Bata believe, that whoever eats a roasted cuckoo before his death is a saint, and, firmly persuaded of the infallibility of this mode of sanctification, deride the Indians, who drag a cow to the bed of a dying person, and pinching her tail, are sure, if by that method they can make the creature void her urine in the face of the patient, he is immediately translated into the third heaven. They scoff at the superstition of the Tartarian princes, who think that their beatification is secure, provided they can eat of the holy excrements of the lama; and the Tartars, in their turn, ridicule the Brahmins, who, for the better purification of their country, require them to eat cow-dung for the space of six months; while these would, one and all, if they were told of the cuckoo method of salvation, as heartily despise and laugh at it. I have cited these ridiculous extravagances to show, that there are two things in which all sects agree; the hatred with which they pursue the errors of others, and the love with which they cling to their own.-Lacon. 66 ROMAN BUTCHER. THE crimes of Augustus seem to be forgotten by posterity. Suetonius relates, that "when the two other Triumvirs implored him to show mercy to the proscrihed, he sternly declared no pardon should be given. Seeing a knight subscribe a paper in his presence, he suspected him of evil designs, and ordered him to be stabbed before his eyes. He conceived a similar suspicion against Gallius, a Prætor, who came to wait upon him, and commanded him to be put to the torture; and when the unfortunate man still continued to assert his innocence, he plucked out his eyes with his own hands, and then caused him to be killed. He murdered many of his prisoners taken in battle in cold blood. He ordered a father and son, taken prisoners at Philippi, to draw lots which should die, or else fight till ore was slain. The father offered his life to save his son ;Augustus ordered him to be murdered, and at the same moment the son killed himself. He sent the head of Brutus from Philippi to be thrown at the base of Cæsar's statue." With what title ought the character of that man to be stamped, against whom history records such deeds as these?-Cabinet of Curiosities. POETRY. THE CAUSE WON. Two neighbours furiously dispute; A field the subject of the suit. Trivial the spot, yet such the rage, With which the combatants engage, "Twere hard to tell who covets most The prize--at whatsoever cost. The pleadings swell. Words still suffice. No single word but has its price; No term but yields some fair pretence For novel and increas'd expense. Defendant thus becomes a name Which he that bore it may disclaim; Since both, in one description blended, Are plaintiffs-when the suit is ended. IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT. evening last, in relation to the subject of imprisonment for debt. A meeting was holden at Tammany Hall on Tuesday Walter Bowne, the late Mayor of the city, presided. Several resolutions were passed, and a memorial was adopted, reprobating in the strongest terms the custom of imprisoning for debt; gislature of the State at its next session, as an offset to an atwhich resolutions and memorial are to be presented to the Letempt which it is expected will be made to repeal the law abolishing such imprisonment. ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. pointed to be holden at Clinton Hall on Wednesday evening A meeting of the friends of immediate emancipation was aplast; but in consequence of strong symptoms of intended disturbance which were manifested, the Hall was not opened. The great body of the people who were assembled, thereupon adjourned to Tammany Hall, where resolutions were passed against immediate abolition. The friends of the measure retired to Chatham-street Chapel, where they organized an Anti-Sla very Society. REMOVAL. The Office of the FAMILY MAGAZINE is removed to 233 Broadway, opposite the Park. PUBLISHED AT 233 BROADWAY. EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR. R. N. WHITE, ENGRAVER. TERMS. ONE DOLLAR AND FIFTY CENTS PER ANNUM, IN ADVANCE. Should an order for the Magazine be received unaccompanied by advance payment, one number will be sent showing our terms, after which, no more will be forwarded till payment shall have been received. Companies of four individuals, sending FIVE DOLLARS, current here, free of postage, will be furnished with four copies for one year. Companies of ten, sending TEN DOLLARS as above, will be furnished with ten copies. As the sum of $1 50, which is the price of the Magazine to a single subscriber, cannot conveniently be sent by mail, it will be necessary that two subscribers at least send payment in a letter together. Schools adopting the Magazine will be supplied at ONE DOLLAR per annum for each copy. The postage on the Magazine is 3-4 of a cent under one hundred miles, and 1 cent and 1-4 for any distance over. VOL. I. OR WEEKLY ABSTRACT OF GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. NEW YORK, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1833. HISTORY AND MYTHOLOGY. son. NO. 26. strength. Thus Chaos still maintains her rights. All formations are yet unsettled, and wavering between seThe Antediluvian history of the world is involved in dition and oppression. Earth groans in her innermost the shades of obscurity, and interwoven with the imag-recesses on account of her children's fate, and mediinings of fiction. But little of reality has been trans- tates vengeance. Forging the first sickle, she gives it mitted to mankind, from that far distant, infantile period as an instrument of revenge to Saturn, her youngest of our race; and hence, to supply the deficiency, men have filled the meagre outlines with additions of their own invention. Some of these fancies we have already given by way of embellishment to this portion of history; and we have more matter of the same nature on hand. But inasmuch as it is partly of a mythological character, we deem it advisable to blend for the time the departments of history and mythology. After a little progress in this way, we shall again divide them as before, and pursue each separately. It will be perceived that we repeat some things which we have already given under the head of mythology; but this is rendered necessary from the nature and connexion of the subject. Meantime we give many things in addition, together with different cuts, &c. thus imparting additional value to the whole. We copy now from Moritz's Mythology. GENERATION OF THE GODS. Wheresoever the eye of fancy cannot penetrate, there is chaos, night, and darkness; and yet the sublime imagination of the Greeks carried even into this night a faint glimmer, which gave charms to its very terrors. In the beginning, there is nothing but Chaos and sable-vested Night, the ancestors of Nature; from them the vast Earth, (Gea, Terra,) afterward takes her rise, and the gloomy Erebus his, and Cupid also, the fairest of immortal gods. Thus, in the very first outset of these fictitious compositions, the opposite extremes of things are brought together; beauty and loveliness being united with the terrors of night and darkness. Form and beauty must arise out of shapelessness and deformity; light must spring from darkness. Night, (Nox,) marries Erebus, the old seat of gloom, and the offspring of their union are Aether and Day. Yet Night, concealing in herself all the forms which the light of day expands before our eyes, presents to us a numerous progeny. Her seat is the deep of the Earth; there is utter darkness, and there the source of all things high, heavenly, and lucid. Earth produces out of herself Uranos, or the Sky, that bends over her, and thus the dark solid matter, surrounded by light and transparency, is what comprises the seed of all things, and from whose womb all creatures spring forth. Earth, after having further produced out of herself the Mountains, and Pontus, or the Sea, marries Uranos, who overclouds her, and she gives him strong sons and daughters, who become formidable to their parent himself. They are: the hundred-armed Giants, Cottus, Gyges or Gyes, and Briareus; the monstrous Cyclops, Brontes, Steropes, and Arges; the ambitious Titans of great strength, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, and Japetus; Oceanus; the mighty Titanides, Thia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Tethys; and finally Saturnus or Chronos, the youngest of the Titans. These children of Sky and Earth, (Uranos and Gea; Coelus and Terra,) however, live not to behold the light of day, but are, as soon as they are born, shut up again iu Tartarus by their father, who dreads their innate Those wild generations must cease. Uranos, who keeps his own children prisoners in nocturnal darkness, must be deprived of his authority. His youngest son, Saturn, instigated by his mother, overreaches him when embracing Earth, and maims him with the sickle received by his mother. Out of the drops of blood which Earth catches up in her lap, arise, in the course of time, the avenging Furies, the dreadful Giants, who hurl defiance toward the vault of heaven, and the Nymphs Meliae, who dwell upon the mountains. The prolific power taken from Uranos renders the Sea fertile, from whose foam Aphrodite, the goddess of Love and Beauty, arises. Thus, out of strife and sedition among the primeval beings, beauty develops and forms itself. The children of Uranos and Gea intermarry, and propagate the race of the Titans. Coeus (Choios, he that begets,) together with Phoebe, (the shining,) becomes the father of Latona and Asteria, the former of whom is afterwards the spouse of Jupiter, and the latter the mother of Hecate. Hyperion, (the wanderer on high,) produces with Thia, (the godlike,) Aurora, Helios, and Luna; Oceanus with Tethys, (the nourisher,) the Streams and Fountains. Japetus marries Clymene, Oceanus' daughter, and is the parent of the Titans, Atlas, Menoetius, Prometheus, and Epimetheus. Crius, (the ruler,) and Eurybia, [the strong,] a daughter of Pontus, give birth to the Titans Astraeus, Pallas, and Perses. Saturn marries Rhea, and with him a new series of generations of gods commences, by whom the former in future times are to be deprived of their power. The lasting forms now gain the superiority, but still not without a long-continued struggle against all-destroying Time, and all-devouring Chaos. Saturn himself is a symbol of this all-destroying Time. He who has maimed his father, swallows his own children as soon as they are born; for his mother Earth had predicted to him, that one of his sons would deprive him of his authority. Thus the crime which he had committed against his father was revenged. For, as Uranos formerly dreaded, so Saturn now dreads seditious power, and while he reigned over his brothers, the Titans, he, in the same manner as his father has done, keeps the hundred-armed Giants and Cyclops imprisoned in Tartarus. He fears ruin from his own children. The new-born creatures still rise against the source of creation, that threatens to swallow them up again. Even as Earth formerly groaned on account of her children's confinement, so Rhea now laments the cruelty of her husband, the all-destroying power, that spares not its own creations. When, therefore, the time came in which she was to become the mother of Jupiter, the future ruler of gods and men, she implored Earth and the starry Heaven for the preservation of the yet unborn child. The ancient, primitive deities are deprived of government, and no influence is left them but that of prophe cies and counsel. The supplicated parents advise their | strength they flung massy oaks and huge rocks towards daughter to hide Jupiter as soon as he should be born, the heavens, disregarding the fiery shafts of Jupiter, in a fertile part of the isle of Crete. Wild, roving fancy, now fixing itself upon a certain spot of the earth, finds on the island, where this divine child shall be brought up, the first resting place. At the advice of her mother Earth, Rhea presents to Saturn, instead of her new-born child, a stone wrapped up in swaddling clothes, and the stratagem succeeds. By means of this significant stone, so often mentioned by the ancients, bounds are set to destruction; the destroying power had taken, for the first time, with its pernicious grasp, death instead of life; and thus the latter gained time to rise secretly, as it were, to light, in order to form and unfold itself. But it is not yet secure against the persecutions springing from the very source whence it derives its origin. The tutors of the divine child on the island of Crete, the Curetes, whose nature as well as origin is enveloped in mysterious darkness, make a continual noise with their shields and spears, lest Saturn should hear the voice of the crying infant. JUPITER'S CONQUEST OF THE GIANTS. The fight between Jupiter and the giants, where power is in sedition against power, is one of the sublimest subjects which plastic art can make use of, and antique did not fail to profit by it. One of the finest an In addition to Jupiter, five more of his children are saved from destruction: Vesta, Ceres, Neptune, Juno, and Pluto. United with them, Jupiter, after having delivered the Cyclops out of their prison, and received from them the thunderbolts, declares war against Sat-tique works that has come down to us, represents the urn and the Titans who assist him. WAR OF THE GODS. The modern gods, with Jupiter at their head, assemble on Mount Olympus; the Titans on the opposite Mount Othrys; and the war of the gods begins. It had lasted ten years, and victory had not yet decided for either party, when Jupiter called to his assistance the hundred-armed giants, who owed to him their deliverance from confinement. These, complying with his request, joined him in the battle, and with their hundred arms threw immense rocks against the Titans, who in close phalanx stood opposed to them. When the gods made the first assault upon each other, the sea arose, the earth groaned, the heavens sighed, and high Olympus was shaken from the top to its deepest root. The rapid lightnings were shot thick from Jupiter's mighty fist; the thunders rolled, the woods blazed, the sea boiled up, and the Titans were enveloped in mist and hot steam. Cottus, Gyges, and Briareus stood foremost in the battle, hurling with every throw three hundred rocks down upon the heads of the Titanian brood. Then victory turned to the side of the Thunderer. Jove with linked thunderbolts hurled his foes down into the gulf of Tartarus. mighty sons of earth raising up their threatening heads from under the thunder- chariot of victorious Jove. ASTRONOMY. THE MOON.--Continued. THE various methods by which the motions of the heavenly bodies are represented in popular treaties have this disadvantage; that not being strictly, sometimes not even nearly, correct, they are apt to leave false impressions upon the mind after the time when it becomes necessary to abandon the first suppositions, and take up others which are nearer the truth. Thus we find it sta ted that the moon moves round the earth uniformly in about twenty-seven days, eight hours, and three-quarters, and always in the same plane, which would lead the beginner to expect that if it occulted, or passed over any star in one month, it would occult the same star in the next month. Again, we speak of the moon's orbit as if it were a circle on the sphere of the heavens, which always retained its place, and of the moon's distance from the earth as if it were always the same. We may, however, lay down the following principles, which the reader must bear in mind in every part of this subject. The three victorious sons of Saturn now divided the 1. There is nothing in the solar system which does ancient realm of the Titans among themselves. Jupi- not undergo sensible variation, except the times of rotater reserved for his part the government of the hea- tion of the planets round their own axes, the average disvens; the dominion of the seas he bestowed upon Nep-tances of the planets from the sun and of the satellites tune; and assigned the infernal regions to Pluto. The from their primaries, and the average or mean times of watch of the entrance to the terrible prison where the revolution of the planets round the sun, and of the satelTitans were shut up, was committed to the hundred-lites round their primaries. By the mean time of revoarmed Giants. Though Jupiter's thunderbolts now kept the gods in awe and submission, his government was not yet firmly established. Earth groaned again at the ignominious treatment of her children, who were confined in the depths of Tartarus. Impregnated with the drops of blood which, on occasion of the maiming of Uranos, she had taken in her lap, she brought forth in the Phlegræan fields the heaven-assailing giants with threatening foreheads and dragon-feet, who attempted to revenge the injury done their brothers. They accordingly waged a new war on the Thunderer, and, although precipitated to the ground, they were not vanquished, for they received new strength whenever they touched their mother Earth. Porphyrion and Alcyoneus, Cromedon and Enceladus, Rhoetus and the valiant Mimas, raised their proud heads higher than all, and stood foremost against the Thunderer's aim; with youthful lution, we mean the average of a large number of revolutions, one hundred for example: thus we should not find any sensible difference between one hundred years and another hundred; or between one hundred months and the next hundred though there may be a slight difference between one year and the next, and a decided difference between one month and the next. To give a notion of the magnitudes of which we are speaking, we should call two minutes a slight difference between two years, and two hours a decided difference between two months. Even when we say that the mean distances and mean motions are invariable, we only mean that, within the time of human observations, no sensible variation has been observed. With regard to the moon, there is a slight variation in her average motion, which though at present causing a difference of only about eleven seconds of a degree in a century, or about the 170th part of her apparent diameter, becomes sensible in a lapse of ages and was discovered by comparing the asserted time of Whenever we talk of a motion as uniform, which is not really uniform, it is to be understood that, with regard to the matter then immediately under consideration, the want of uniformity makes no sensible difference in the nature of the result. Thus, when we come to speak of the moon's phases, we shall be very well able to explain the progress from new to full moon, and back again, without taking account of the irregularity. These will only affect the time of the phenomenon, and not the phenomenon itself. However varied the motion round the earth may be, provided it does move round, there will always be a new and full moon. If one ball, A, is luminous, and throws its light upon another, B, if A be less than B, less than half of B will be illuminated; if A be equal to B, just half of B will be illuminated; and if A be greater than B, more than half of B will be illuminated. This is evident in the following diagram. At the same time, however great the ball Ă A B B may be, the further it is removed from B, the less of B is illuminated; though if A be greater than B, never less than one half. Though the sun is much greater than the moon, yet its distance is so great that we may con sider the moon as half illuminated. In the following diagram, the eye of the spectator is looking at the moon from a point in the line ME, so that the hemisphere of the moon which is visible to him, (or which would be if completely illuminated,) is bounded by the circle ABCD. The line M S is drawn from the D E must be observed, however, that the dark part is on the other side of the moon, not on that of py; for on looking at the preceding figure, we see that ME and MS both cut through the enlightened part of the moon. Inattention to this circumstance would make us place the dark and light parts on the wrong sides. We now represent the real phenomena of a lunation, or period in which the moon goes through all its changes." We suppose the sun to move round the earth, instead of the earth round the sun, which will make no difference in the observed phenomena. A sidereal revolution [sidus, a star] of a heavenly body is the time in which it goes completely round the heavens, from a star to the same star again. The average or mean sidereal revolution of the sun, or the sidereal year, is 365 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes, and 10 seconds; the average or mean sidereal month, or revolution of the moon, is 27 days, 7 hours, 43 minutes, and 12 seconds: from which we may calculate, that while the moon moves round the heavens, the sun moves, on the average, through 26 dg. 9-10. In the diagram in the following page, in which the sun, moon, and earth are supposed to be in the same centre of the moon towards the sun, so that the boun-plane, (a supposition near enough to the truth for our dary of the illuminated part, or as much of it as is seen from the earth, is AFC. Of the hemisphere, which would, if illuminated, be visible to him, ABC is not illuminated, and is therefore not visible, and ADC is visible. The size of the portion A B C depends upon the angle FMB, which is the same as the angle SME, that is, the angle by which the sun is separated from the earth to a spectator at the centre of the moon; that is to say, the dark part of the moon is as great a proportion of the whole hemisphere as the angle under which a spectator at the centre of the moon sees the sun and earth, is of two right angles. Or more simply thus: let S, E, and M represent the relative positions of the centres of the sun, earth, and moon, then drawing a semicircle pqr, pq represents the portion of the moon's surface which is dark, and qr that which is enlightened. It a purpose,) we trace, not the common month, or lunation, but the sidereal month; which we do, partly because we suppose many of our readers have studied the common diagram in which the phases are explained, while the better see how the common month, lunation, or synodisun remains stationary, and partly that they may the cal month, arises. The earth is at E; the sun is so distant that it appears in the same direction from the centres both of the earth and moon. This is not a forced supposition, for the proper place of the sun would be at distance from E, equal to four hundred times the distance of the moon. While the moon moves round the circle 1, 2, 3, &c. the sun moves round E more slowly, and the arrow which passes through the moon in the figure points to the sun in each position of the moon. The smaller circles represent the moon's equator, the enlightened part of which is dotted; while the part of the enlightened disc which is seen from the earth has a thin line of shading behind the dots. The boundaries of the face presented to the earth are at a and b. Imagine the representation of the moon much reduced in size, & the moon and sun in the line passing through E and 1. No part of the enlightened hemisphere is then visible: it is new moon, and there is an eclipse of the sun. The reason why there is not always an eclipse of |