ESSAY TWO (1785) {Ak.VIII.67-76}
ON THE
VOLCANOS
IN THE MOON
{69} In the Gentleman’s Magazine, 1784, Ïright at the beginning¸ there is a letter from the Russian privy counsellor Mr. Aepinus to Mr. Pallas on an account which Mr. Magellan of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Petersburg communicated concerning a volcano in the moon, discovered by Mr. Herschel on the 4th ÏMay 1783¸.[1] This novity [Neuigkeit] was the more interesting to Mr. Aepinus, as he himself says, because in his opinion it evinced the justness of his conjecture on the volcanic origin of the inequalities of the surface of the moon, which he formed in the year 1778 and published[2] in Berlin in 1781;* and wherein, as he owns [gesteht] with pleasure, three naturalists (himself, Mr. Aepinus in Petersburgh, Professor Beccaria[3] in Turin, and Professor Lichtenberg in Göttingen) have concurred without communication. AsÏ, however,¸ attention has been so universally directed to volcanic craters in all countries by Ïthe Knight,¸ [Sir William] Hamilton: that conjecture may Ïthus¸ be compared to Ïan¸ overripe fruit, which must fall into the hands of the first Ïone¸ who accidentally touches the tree. Finally,[4] in order not to excite a dispute[5] between contemporaries by pretensions to the honour of the first conjecture, he [(Mr. Aepinus)] mentions the celebrated Robert Hooke[6] as the first author of it, in whose Microgeography (printed in 1655) Ïin¸ the 20th chapter, he met with, Ïto [some]¸ degree,[7] the same ideas. Sic redit ad Dominum — [8]
ÏMr.¸ Herschel’s discovery, as a confirmation of the ambiguous observations of ÏMr.¸ Beccaria’s nephew and of Don Ulloa,[9] has by all means Ïa¸ great value and leads to resemblances of the moon (probably of other mundane bodies too) with our earth, which might have otherwise passed but for hazarded conjectures. But (as I take it) Mr. Aepinus’ conjecture does not
{69} *Of the Inequality of the Moon; in the 2nd volume of the Treatises of the Society of the Friends of Natural Philosophy.[10]
confirm them. Notwithstanding all the similitude of the ring-shaped[11] spots of the moon to craters {70} of volcanos, there Ïyet¸ remains a considerable[12] difference between both, and on the other hand, such a[13] striking resemblance of them to other circular features of nonvolcanic mountains or ridges of hills upon our earth shows itself that rather another conjecture, though but in some measure analogical with that on the formation of the mundane bodies, might thereby be confirmed.
The ring-shaped elevations in the moon similar to craters by all means make an origin by eruptions probable. But we find upon our earth two sorts of circular elevations: of which the one is Ïthroughout¸ but of so small an area[14] that it, observed from the moon, could not be distinguished by any telescope whatever, and the substances of which these consist show their origin from volcanic eruptions. Other sorts, on the contrary, comprise whole countries or provinces of many hundred square miles Ïin size¸, within a Ïwandering¸ ridge of hills [Landrückens] beset with more or less high mountains and of a circular form. These Ïalone would [stand] out¸[15] from the moon, and indeed might be seen [as] the same size as those circular spots we discern in the moon, unless the similarity of their clothing (by forests or other vegetation[16]) should impede the distinguishing of them at so great a distance. These Ïtherefore also¸ allow a presumption of eruptions, from which they may have taken their origin, but which, according to the testimony of the substances of which they consist, can have been by no means volcanic. — The crater of Vesuvio has (according to della Torre[17]) in its highest circumference 5624 Parisian feet, and therefore about 500 Rhineland rods,[18] and in diameter nearly 160 Ïof the same¸; but such a one could certainly not be discovered in the moon by any telescope.* On the other hand,[19] Tycho, the spot in the moon similar to a crater, has nearly thirty German miles in diameter, and might be compared to the kingdom of Bohemia, {71} but the nearby spot Clavius Ï[might be compared]¸ in size to the margraviate of Moravia. Now these countries upon the earth are like-
{70} *But its fiery eruption might Ïnevertheless¸ be seen in the moon’s night. In the above-mentioned letters the remark is made to the observations of ÏMr.¸ Beccaria’s nephew and of Don Ulloa, that both volcanos must have been of an astonishing area, as ÏMr.¸ Herschel, by Ï[using]¸ a telescope beyond comparison greater, could Ïeven so [only]¸ just observe his [volcano], Ïand¸ was Ïcertainly¸ the only one among all the spectators Ï[to observe it]¸.[20] But with regard to self-luminous substances, it does not depend so much on the area as on the purity of the fire, in order to be distinctly seen; and it is known of volcanos that their flames spread around them a light sometimes clear, sometimes stifled in smoke. —
wise similar to craters inclosed[21] with mountains, from which, in the same manner as from Tycho, chains of mountains extend themselvesÏ, so to speak,¸ in [the form of] a star. But if our basins of the shape of craters, inclosed by ridges of mountains (which Ïaltogether¸ form [abgeben] reservoirs of waters for the rivers, and with which the terra firma[22] is everywhere covered) should not Ïprovide¸ the moon Ïwith¸[23] a similar aspect—as in fact it is to be presumed but by a few things—: this would be to be ascribed but to the contingent circumstance: that the atmosphere of the moon (whose actuality is proved by Herschel’s discovery, as fire burns there) cannot by far reach so high as ours (as the imperceptible refraction at the edge of this satellite evinces), therefore the ridges of mountains of the moon reach beyond the sphere of vegetation; yet[24] with us the ridges of mountains are for the most part covered with vegetation, and hence cannot predominate greatly [sonderlich abstechen] over the surface of the inclosed basin.
We thus have upon the earth two sorts of formations of the surface of the ground similar to craters: the one, which is of volcanic origin and which [is] 160 rods in diameter, consequently comprises about 20,000 square rods Ïon the surface¸; the other, which is by no means of volcanic origin and has about 1000 square miles, Ï[is] indeed¸ therefore 200,000 times more in its surface-contents.[25] To what shall we now compare those ring-shaped elevations in the moon (of which none of those that have been observed have less than a German mile, some Ï[having] even¸ thirty German miles, in diameter)? — I think:[26] to judge according to analogy, only to the latter, which are not volcanic. For Ïit is¸ not only the form that matters;[27] the immense difference of the size must also be taken into account. Then, however, ÏMr.¸ Herschel’s observation confirms, it is true, the idea of volcanos in the moon, but only of such ones whose craters neither have been nor can be seen by him or anybody else; but it has not confirmed the opinion that the visible circular configurations upon the surface of the moon are volcanic craters. For (if one may judge here according to the analogy with similar great basins upon the earth) in all probability they are not. It would then need to be said, only: as the moon, with regard to the basins resembling craters, has so much likeness to those Ï[basins]¸ which form the reservoirs of waters upon the earth {72} for rivers, but are not volcanic: it may be presumed that she Ïtoo¸ is formed in a similar manner to the volcanic craters found upon the earth. Indeed we cannot see the latter in the moon; but there may Ïyet¸ be perceived in the moon’s night self-luminous points which, as proofs of a fire upon [the moon], may be the best explained from this cause, [which may be] presumed according to analogy.*
Setting aside now this small ambiguity in the consequence of the aforenamed celebrated men, —to what cause then can be ascribed the nonvolcanic craters, Ïnamely, the basins in rivers¸ so universally to be met with upon the surface of the earth? Here eruptions must naturally be laid as a foundation; but volcanic they cannot be, because the mountains which form their edge contain no substances of such a nature, but appear to have originated from an aqueous mixture. I think: that, when the earth is represented as a chaos originally dissolved in water, the first eruptions, which must everywhere take place, even from the greatest depths, have been (in the proper sense of the word) atmospherical. For it may be very well assumed: that our sea of air (aerosphere), which is at present above the surface of the earth, was formerly mixed in a chaos with the other material substances [übrigen Materien] of the mundane mass; that it, together with many other elastic vapours, has broken out from the heated globe, as it were,[28] in great bladders; Ï[that it]¸ has in this ebullition (from which no part of the surface of the earth was free) thrown out in the form of craters the substances which form the original mountains, and thereby has laid the foundation for all the basins[29] of the rivers with which, like the meshes of a net, the whole terra firma is interwoven. Those edges, as they consist of matter which was softened in the water, must gradually quit the water that dissolved them, which [water] in running off washed out the cuts whereby those edges, at present mountainous and in the form of saws, are distinguished from the volcanic ones, which represent a continuous ridge. These primeval mountains, after other substances which did not {73} crystallize or harden so soon, e.g. hornstone and original chalk, were separated Ïfrom them, now¸ consist of granite; upon which, as the ebullition was always weaker, consequently lower at the same place, the latter, as washed-out substances, settled in an order like steps, according to their less gravity or capacity of solution in water. Thus the first formative[30] cause of the inequalities of the surface was an atmospherical ebullition, but which I would rather name chaotic, in order to denote its first beginning.
{72} *Beccaria[31] held the ridges running like rays out of the ring-shaped elevations of the moon Ïto be¸ rivers of lava; but the Ïwhole¸ prodigious difference between them and those which flow from the volcanos of our earth, relative to their magnitude, refutes this opinion and makes it probable: that they are chains of mountains which, like those upon our earth, flow out in the manner of rays[33] from a principal stock [Hauptstamm] of mountains.
Upon these Ï[river basins]¸, it must be represented, a pelagian alluvion[34] Ïhas¸ piled little by little[35] substances which for the most part Ïalready¸ contained marine creatures. For those chaotic craters where a multitude of them was, as it were, grouped, formed widely extended elevations above other regions, where the ebullition was not so violent. From those Ï[higher craters]¸ there was Ï[formed]¸ land with its mountains, from these Ï[lower craters],¸ the bed of the sea. ÏNow¸ as the superfluous crystallization’s water from those basins washed through Ïtheir¸ edges,[36] and one basin let its water run off into another, but all [of them] to the low part of the surface of the earth just forming itself (namely, the sea): Ïso¸ it formed the passages for the future rivers that one still beholds with astonishment[37] Ï[as they]¸ pass between steep walls of rocks, to which they can at present do[38] nothing, and seek the sea. This was therefore the figure of the skeleton of the surface of the earth, so far as it consists of granite that continues under all the horizontal layers [Flötzschichten], which the subsequent pelagian alluvions Ïhave¸ placed upon that. But the figure of the countries, even Ïaround it,¸ where the new strata quite covered the old granite at the bottom, must Ïyet also¸ assume the form of craters, because their bed was so formed. Hence the ridges of hills may be drawn upon a map (upon which no mountains are marked), when, through the sources of the streams that fall into a great river, a continual line is drawn, which always incloses a circle as the basin of the river.[39]
As the bed of the sea perhaps constantly deepened and drew to itself all the water running out of the above[-mentioned] basins: so Ïnow¸ the beds of the rivers and the whole present structure of the land, which makes possible the union of the water from so many basins in one channel, were produced. For there is nothing more natural than that the bed, wherein at present a river carries off the water from great countries, was washed out[40] by the very same water to which {74} it now leads, namely, the sea and its very ancient alluvionsÏ, and by the retreat [of the sea water]¸. Beneath[41] an universal ocean, as Buffon[42] would [have it], Ïand through sea rivers left in the same ground,¸ a washing-away according to such a rule cannot possibly be conceived: because under the water no flowing according to the slope[43] of the ground, which however constitutes here the most essential [part], is possible.*
{74} *The course of rivers seems to me to be the proper key to the theory of the earth. For thereto is required: that the country firstly be divided by ridges of hills, as it were,
The volcanic eruptions appear to have been the latest Ï[occurrence], namely¸, after the earth Ïhad already¸ grown[44] firm on its surface. They did not Ïeven¸ form the land, with its hydraulic regular architecture, for [the purpose of] the flowing rivers, but perhaps single mountains only, which, in comparison with the edifice of the whole terra firma and its mountains, are but a trifle.
The use then, which the
thought of the aforenamed celebrated men may be of, and which Herschel’s discovery confirms,
though only indirectly, is with regard to cosmogony of importance:
namely, that the mundane bodies have received their first formation pretty much
in a similar manner. In the beginning they were all in a fluid state; this is
proved by their globosity and, where they can be observed according to both[45] the rotation upon the
axis and the gravity on their surface, Ï[by their]¸ flattened form.
Without heat, however, there is no fluidity. ÏNow¸ whence came this
original heat? To derive it with Buffon from the heat of the
sun, of which all the planetary globes are but broken-off pieces, is but a
shift for a short time; for whence came the heat of the sun?[46] When it is supposed
(which from other grounds is very probable) that the element of all the mundane
bodies in the whole extended space in which they at present move was at first
diffused in the form of vapour, and that they formed themselves therefrom
according to laws, at first of the chemical, [but] afterwards[47] and chiefly of the
cosmological, attraction: Ïthen¸ Crawford’s discoveries give
a hint, together with the formation of the mundane bodies, to render
comprehensible at the same time the generation of as great
a Ïdegree of¸
heat as one pleases.[48] For, if the element of heat is of itself
uniformly spread everywhere in the mundane space, but adheres to different {75}
substances in the proportion only as they attract it differently; if, as he
proves, diffused substances in the form of vapour contain much more elementary
heat in themselves, and also require more than they can keep in a diffusion in Ïthe¸ form of vapour, as
soon as they pass to the state of denser masses,[49] i.e. unite
themselves in the mundane globes: Ïthen¸ these globes must contain
a proportion of warm matter above the natural equilibrium[50] with the warm substance in the space in which they are; i.e.
their relative heat with respect to the mundane space
into ponds; secondly, that the ground, upon which these ponds communicate to one another their water, in order to carry it off at last in one canal, shall be formed and built by the water itself, which falls [zurückzog] by degrees from the highest basins to the lowest [basin], Ïnamely, to¸ the sea.
is accumulated.[51] (Thus the vitriolic acid air, when it touches ice, loses at once its state of being in vapour, and thereby the heat increases to such a degree that the ice melts in a moment.) We cannot discover how great the accumulation may be; yet the measure of the original rarefaction, the degree of the condensation afterwards, and the shortness of the time of it, seem here to come into computation. As the latter Ïnow¸ depends upon the degree of attraction which united the diffused matter, but this Ï[degree depends]¸ upon the quantity of the substance of the mundane body forming itself: so the greatness of the heat too must be proportional to the latter. In this manner do we perspect [einsehen] why the central body (as the greatest mass in every mundane system) can Ïeverywhere¸ both have the greatest heat and be a sun; as also Ï[do we]¸ presume with some probability that the higher planets, as they are Ïusually¸ partly greater, [and] partly formed of more rarefied matter than the lower, may have more internal heat than these, which they Ïalso¸ seem to require (as they receive from the sun nearly only enough light for seeing).[52] Also the mountainous formation of the surfaces of the mundane bodies to which our observation reaches, of the earth, of the moon, and of Venus, from atmospherical eruptions of their originally heated, chaotic-fluid mass, appear to us as a pretty general law. Finally the volcanic eruptions upon the earth, the moon, and even the sun (whose craters Wilson saw in its spots, by ingeniously comparing their phenomena with one another, as Huygens did those of Saturn’s ring), receive an universal principle of derivation and explanation.[53]
Should one retort against me here the fault which I found above with Buffon’s mode of exposition, and ask: Whence then came the first motion of those atoms in the mundane space? I would answer Ïthus¸: that I did not thereby Ïmake myself¸ bound[54] to point out the first of all the alterations {76} of nature, which in fact is impossible. But yet I hold it not allowable to stop at a state of nature,[55] e.g. the heat of the sun, which has a resemblance to phenomena whose cause we may at least conjecture according to Ïotherwise¸ known laws, and in a desperate manner to call on the immediate Divine disposition as a ground of explanation. This Ïlast [approach]¸ must indeed, when nature on the whole is in question [die Rede], inevitably close our inquiry; but in every epoch of nature, since none of these [epochs] can be given as the absolutely [schlechthin] first in a sensible world, we are not freed from the obligation to search Ï[for such a ground]¸ among the causes of the world, as far as it is but possible for us, and to follow [verfolgen] their chain according to laws known to us, as long as its [links] are connected.[56]
1. R. has ‘on the 4th. June of the same year’, and cites the year of the article as 1783. Ak. VIII.476 notes: ‘The Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. LIV (August 1784). London. pp.563-64. Aepinus (E.U. Theodor Hoch), German-Russian physicist, 1724-1828. O.S. Pallas, 1741-1811, celebrated naturalist and traveller.’
2. K.’s ‘durch den Druck bekannt gemacht hat’ could be translated more literally, though rather awkwardly, as ‘made known in print’.
3. ‘Giacomo Battista Beccaria, 1716-1781, Professor of Physics at Turin from 1748 onwards.’ (Ak. VIII.476)
6. ‘The title of Hooke’s (1635-1703) work reads: Micrographia, or some phsiological descriptions of minute bodies, 1665.’ (Ak. VIII.476)
8. ‘So he returned [it] to the Lord’—i.e., to the true owner. K. may be paraphrasing Matt. 22:21, where Jesus says ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.’
9. ‘Don Antonio de Ulloa, 1716-1795, well-known through his participation in the ???? in Peru.’ (Ak. VIII.476)
10. ‘Writings of the Society of the Friends of Natural Philosophy, vol. II, pp.1ff. Berlin, 1781. Hamilton’s work, Campi Phlegraci, is named there.’ (Ak. VIII.476)
11. R. has ‘circular’ for K.’s ‘ringförmigen’. I use ring-shaped to distinguish this term from K.’s ‘kreisförmige’, which R. also translates as ‘circular’.
15. R. omits K.’s ‘entstanden’ and puts ‘only might be seen’ here, rather than where I have placed it later in the sentence.
17. ‘Giovanni Maria della Torre, Father and Director of the Royal Library in Naples. By him: History of the Natural Events of Vesuvio from the Most Ancient Times up to the Year 1779. Altenburg, 1783.’ (Ak. VIII.476)
18. K. has ‘rheinländische Ruthen’; cf. Essay One, note 36. According to the Oxford English Dictionary (second edition), vol.13, p.860, a Rhineland-rod is ‘a measure of two Fathom, or twelve Foot’. The exact length of a rod, however, varies with different regions, and in English usage it can be anywhere from 5.5 to 8 yards (as a linear measure) or 30-40 square yards (as a measurement of area). K. uses it here as a linear measure equal to 11.25 Parisian feet. The size of a ‘German mile’, mentioned in the next sentence, is explained in note 25.
25. Assuming K.’s calculations were accurate, he must have been working with a German mile equivalent to 2000 rods. At 12 feet per rod (see above, note 18), that works out to approximately 7.2 km or 4.5 English miles per German mile.
29. R. has ‘beds’ for K.’s ‘Bassins’, though he sometimes translates this term more literally as ‘basins’. To distinguish it from ‘Becken’ (‘beds’), I use basins.
31. ‘Beccaria’s supposition [appears] in Gentleman’s Magazine, 1784, p.564, first column, Remark.’ (Ak. VIII.477)
31. ‘Beccaria’s supposition [appears] in Gentleman’s Magazine, 1784, p.564, first column, Remark.’ (Ak. VIII.477)
35. R. has ‘slipped from the edges of those basins’ for K.’s ‘aus jenen Bassins ihre Ränder durchwusch’.
41. ‘G.L. Leclerc de Buffon (1707-1788). Natural History, vol. I, 1749. Theory of the Land and Epochs of Nature, 1778, translated from French to German [as] Epochs of Nature. St. Petersburg. 1781. Vol. II, pp.21ff.’ (Ak. VIII.477) The subsequent reference to Buffon (see p.36 [Ak. VIII.74]) is to vol. I, pp.68ff.
43. R. has ‘and not till the earth grew’ for K.’s ‘nämlich nachdem die Erde schon ... geworden war’.
45. At this point R. adds the following footnote. [The sun, which is 14,00000 times greater than the earth, is, according to the latest, highly probable, opinion, not an igneous but an electric globe, whose light is produced by the friction of its incredibly quick gyration. Its body, according to Bode’s representation, is an originally planetary opaque body involved in light (Lichtmaterie), which streams around it like an atmosphere of fire (photosphere) and has sometimes empty places, through which we see the proper body, and which appear to us as spots upon the sun’s disk. The Sun’s rotation about his axis is, in comparison of his magnitude with that of his planets, performed with greater velocity than any of them. The much smaller earth turns round in 24 hours, but the huge body of the sun in 25 days 14 hours; only Jupiter, who revolves in 9 hours 56 minutes, and is 1479 times bigger than the earth, comes near to that rotation. The luminous substance (lumière), which, according to Bode’s opinion, surrounds the real body of the sun, in itself opaque, is no true burning, but only light, whose nonigneous rays propagate themselves through the ether, but first according to the size of the angle of incidence in the (planetary) atmosphere happening in every country (of the planets), with their astonishing quick motion according to the nature of the soil there and of the vapours rising out of the earth (and other planets), by different modifications and mixtures of its mineral, vegetable and animal primitive matter, then produce and occasion upon the surface of the earth more or less heat. — Calorique, therefore, lies by all means in the rays of the sun; but it develops itself first out of them, when they dart against any thing more rigid. Every body knows that it is cold upon high mountains though the sun shines upon them. Hence every planet has the modification of its density; but the light of the sun is strengthened in the distant planets by the moon.]
47. ‘Adair Crawford, 1749-1795, physician and Professor of Chemistry in London. His principal work: Experiments and Observations on Animal and Heat and the Inflamation of Combustible Bodies ... etc. London, 1779.’ (Ak. VIII.477)
48. I have revised R.’s word order slightly here. Also, R. translates K.’s dunstförmig(en) as ‘form of exhalations’ in its first occurence and as ‘form of vapour’ in its second. I have used the latter in both instances to be consistent. See Essay One, note 43.
50. Here and immediately after the parenthetical sentence, R. has ‘augmented’ and ‘augmentation’ for K.’s ‘angewachsen’ and ‘Anwachs’, respectively.
52. R. has ‘illustration’ for K.’s ‘Erklärung’. Ak. VIII.477 adds the following two notes to this sentence: ‘Alexander Wilson, 1714-1786, Professor of Astronomy in Glasgow. By him: Observations of Soar Spots, Philosophical Transactions, London, 1774.’ And on Huygens: ‘Systema Saturninus. sive de causis mirandorum Saturni phaenomenorum et comite ejus planeta nova. [Saturn’s System. Or, Concerning the Cause of the Remarkable Phenomenon of Saturn and the EJUS???? Accompanying the New/Strange Planet.] The Hague. 1659.’