Lunar day

“ We know that changes occur in the moon, from cold to heat, and from darkness to light. But the lunar day is as long as 291 of ours; so that each portion of the surface is exposed to, or turned from, the sun for nearly 14 days. This long exposure produces excessive heat, and the long darkness excessive cold. ”

“ But in the early ages of the world, when mankind were chiefly engaged in rural occupations, the phases of the moon must have been objects of great attention and interest,—hence the month, and the practice adopted by many nations of reckoning time by the motions of the moon, as well as the still more general practice of combining lunar with solar periods. The solar day, the solar year, and the lunar month, or lunation, may therefore be called the natural divisions of time. ”

“ We have, it is true, been taught until very lately that the side of the moon turned sunward would grow hotter and hotter in the long lunar day, till it reached a temperature of two hundred to three hundred degrees Fahrenheit, and that in the equally long lunar night it would fall as much as this below zero. ”

“ It might seem, that, since the moon rotates on her axis in about twenty-seven days, the lunar day ought to be twenty-seven days long, instead of twenty-nine. There is, however, a solar, as well as a sidereal, day at the moon, as on the earth; and the solar day at the moon is longer than the sidereal day, for the same reason as on the earth. During the solar day the moon must make both a synodical rotation and a synodical revolution. ”

“ The day of the week on which the moon is new or full, is a question that awakens the most anxious concern. In the north of Italy Wednesday is dreaded for a lunar change, and in the south of France the inauspicious day is Friday. ”

“ The moon is the more powerful of the two perturbing bodies, hence the main tides are due to the moon; and its chief action is to cause a pair of low waves or oceanic humps, of gigantic area, to travel round the earth once in a lunar day, i.e. in about 24 hours and 50 minutes. The sun makes a similar but still lower pair of low elevations to travel round once in a solar day of 24 hours. ”

“ But the moon is not to be judged alone by the quantity of light she sends to us, but also by her influence on the earth and its inhabitants. "The moon gravitates toward the earth, and the earth reciprocally toward the moon." The poet who walks by moonlight is conscious of a tide in his thought which is to be referred to lunar influence. I will endeavor to separate the tide in my thoughts from the current distractions of the day. ”

“ Worm expressly states that these lunar months were still in use and began with the first new moon of the new year.
An account of connected lunar months among the East Finns has been translated and communicated to me by Professor Wiklund. The authority makes a man of the people speak as follows [1033] :—“The moon which is born while the winter day is still in his house (December 18–22) , or after [306] that, is the first heart- (middle-) moon. In this way the Christmas festival sometimes falls in the first heart-moon, and then we hope for a good harvest. ”

“ There is no reason to suppose that the day of full moon could become detached from the genuine lunar month, and such a process would seem still more strange since the day of new moon remained a genuine new-moon day. On the other hand the development of market and rest-day into a day of taboo is everywhere natural, and is attested in the above examples from Africa ”

“ In between lie the separate phases of the waxing and waning moon. The synodic month is the interval between two new moons and comprises on an average 29 days 12 hrs. 44 min. 2.98 secs. This is the true lunar month: other varieties of month are of no importance for us.
"The risings and settings of the stars. It has already been remarked that the sun in the course of a year runs through the zodiac backwards, so that one particular star culminates 3 min. 56 secs. earlier every day. ”

“ The same progress of events must continue, till, at some remote period in the future, the day has come to equal the month, lunar tidal action has ceased, and one face of the earth looks out always at the moon with that same fixed stare which even now the moon has been brought to assume towards her parent orb. ”

“ The movement of rotation is the one that causes night and day on the surface of the moon, only there is but one day and one night in a lunar month, and they each last 354-1/3 hours. But, happily, the face, turned towards the terrestrial globe, is lighted by it with an intensity equal to the light of fourteen moons. As to the other face, the one always invisible, it has naturally 354 hours of absolute night, tempered only by "the pale light that falls from the stars." ”

“ It is obvious, then, that the sunshine as it creeps over these Alpine landscapes in the moon, casting the black shadows of the peaks and craters many miles across the plains, and capping the summits of lofty mountains with light, while the lower regions far around them are yet buried in night, must clearly reveal the character of the lunar surface. Mountains that can not be seen at all when the light falls perpendicularly upon them, or, at the most, appear then merely as shining points, picture themselves by their shadows in startling silhouettes when illuminated laterally by the rising sun. ”

“ The moon has no atmosphere; no rain falls on her barren surface; no clouds move above her; no tempests howl in her caverns; no snows crown her volcanic peaks; no sunsets shine in gorgeous colors; there are no violet and crimson skies at dawn. The moon is the kingdom of eternal calm, and sleep, and stillness. If any blow disturbs the lunar surface, it is from the fall of meteors rained upon it through space. It is [Pg 77] to our atmosphere we owe the glories of the clouds, the beneficence of waters, the magic of frost changes, the rush of storms, the balmy breezes, the sky. ”

“ Just as the growth and dwindling of plants became associated with the moon’s wax and wane, so changes of weather became associated with changes of the moon, while, by astrologer’s logic, it did not matter whether the moon’s change were real, at new and full, or imaginary, at the intermediate quarters. That educated people to whom exact weather records are accessible should still find satisfaction in the fanciful lunar rule, is an interesting case of intellectual survival. ”

“ Shining large and fair in the heavens, the moon seems, as a queen, to lead forth the hosts of the stars, but if we watch its course each of the twenty-seven days which it requires for its journey around the earth, we shall see that it continually falls behind the progress of the shining hosts, and possesses a motion entirely independent of them. The moon, like the earth, shines by the reflected light of the sun, and this causes the lunar or moon phases. ”

“ In the nineteenth century as well as in the dark ages, in London as well as in the ends of the earth, men of all colours and clans are found turning their faces heavenward to read their duty and destiny in the oracular face of the moon. Many consult their almanacks more than their Bibles, and follow the lunar phases as their sole interpretation of the will of God.
Among those who worship the moon as a personal deity, whether beneficent or malign, its influences are of course welcomed or dreaded as the manifestations of supreme power. ”

“ But the lunar year regulates everywhere the general religious rites and festivals, and the details of private and domestic life, such as the selection of auspicious occasions for marriages and for starting on journeys, the choice of lucky moments for shaving, and so on. Consequently, the details of the lunar year are shown even in the almanacs which follow the solar year. On the other hand, certain details of the solar year, such as the course of the sun through the signs and other divisions of the zodiac, are shown in the almanacs which follow the lunar year. ”

“ The moon, whose course through the heavens regulated the months of the early lunar year, and whose influence was regarded by the ancients, in common with that of the sun, as one of the fertilising principles of nature, and as exerted chiefly amid wilds and woods, at a distance from the crowded abodes of man, had in this spot, apparently, a peculiar claim for her special appropriation. ”

“ In all other respects the scene presented to the spectator on the moon was similar; but, as seen from the lunar Apennines, the glorious orb of earth shone high in the heavens; and the sun, source of the light then bathing her oceans and continents, lay far down below the level of the lunar horizon. ”

“ Well, that is the sort of illumination which the lunar man will enjoy under these circumstances; all the features of his country will be brightly lighted up by the full earth. Of course, this earth-lighted side of the moon cannot be compared in brilliancy with the sun-lighted side, but the brightness will still be perceptible, so that when from the earth we look at the moon, we see this glow distributed all over the dark portion; that is, we observe the feebly lighted globe clasped in the brilliant arms of the crescent. ”

“ We can then conceive the intrepid lunar inhabitants venturing, as far as they can breathe, within the barren hemisphere; just like adventurous travellers on our globe, scaling lofty mountains, to obtain an extended view of the landscape. What an astonishing spectacle must burst upon the view of the lunar tourist, as soon as he fairly gets within the new hemisphere! The traveller, who has spent the night on the summit of the Rigi, to watch the rising of the sun over the snow-clad ranges of the Oberland Alps, feels rewarded for all his toil by the glorious spectacle. ”

“ Lū′nulite, a small circular fossil coral.—Lunar caustic, fused crystals of nitrate of silver, applied to ulcers, &c.; Lunar cycle=Metonic cycle (q.v.) ; Lunar month (see Month) ; Lunar observation, an observation of the moon's distance from a star for the purpose of finding the longitude; Lunar rainbow (see Rainbow, under Rain) ; Lunar theory, a term employed to denote the a priori deduction of the moon's motions from the principles of gravitation; Lunar year (see Year) . [L. lunaris—luna, the moon—lucēre, to shine.] ”

“ The age of the moon here is actually less than it was in the photograph that we last examined, yet, in consequence of libration, which has caused the moon, in effect, to roll a little to one side, the sunlight is farther advanced toward the east, and we see many features of the lunar world that before had not yet emerged from night. ”

“ A little study, however, will show that the Moon, while influencing the tides, affects also all fluidic life on the globe. It appreciably affects the sap-cells of plants and trees. It exerts a direct influence on blood pressure in the animal body, and consequently affects the brain and nervous system of human beings, and excites a variety of passions and impulses which are but remotely connected with the lunar orb itself. ”

“ This argument simply is, that the moon as she travels on her orbit round the sun—the real centre of her motion—turns every part of her equator in succession towards him once in a lunar month. At the time of new moon the sun illuminates the face of the moon turned from us; at the time of full moon he illuminates the face which has been gradually brought round to him as the moon has passed through her first two quarters. ”

“ The new moon, apart from its function of indicating the beginning of the lunar month, has also by many tribes been hailed with joy as a friend restored to life after seeming extinction.993 The full moon, while it has not entered so intimately into the emotional life of man, has played an important part by marking the division of the month into two equal parts. ”

“ Most observers will agree with Schmidt, that observations and drawings of objects on the sombre depressed plains of the moon are easier and pleasanter to make than on the dazzling highlands, and that the lunar "sea" is to the working selenographer like an oasis in the desert to the traveller—a relief in this case, however, not to an exhausted body, but to a weary eye. ”

“ Seeing the new moon in the old moon's arms is a sign of a change in the weather, so is a star passing over it. The change will be for the worse if the moon goes over the star. "Herbs for drying must be gathered at full moon; winter fruit picked and stored at full moon, not to lose its plumpness. Timber should be felled on the bating of the moon, because the sap is then down, and the wood will be more durable."—Bottrell.
Two weather proverbs say, "That Cornwall will stand a shower every day, and two for Sundays;" ”

“ The lunar year is eleven days shorter than the solar, and so loses three years in every century of ours. There is this convenience in the lunar reckoning, that, if the date be given, you can tell the age of the moon ”

“ Is there not something a little more romantic in the moon—something to relieve the strain of all this nomenclature of words terminating in ‘us,’ and this frightful lunar geology?”
“Yes,” I said, “I believe that on the other half of the moon, which has not yet seen the sun rise, we shall find something better to your taste. But do not be too impatient. ”

“ The southern portion of the moon is a mass of old craters, ring-plains, valleys, hills, and ridges; with its radiant streak system and diversity of formations it is the most interesting part of the lunar surface. ”