THE CREATURES OF THE MOON.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11872, 25 January 1902, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE CREATURES OF THE MOON.

There is some scientific reason to think that the moon is still inhabited by creatures capable of feeling and thinking, creatures in whom the semblance of man is not entirely extinct: I come to this conclusion notwithstanding all that can be sakl against it from a scientific standpoint, and from our observation of this satellite. Two possibilities present themselves to the unprejudiced mind.

It is not unthinkable that the dead body of the moon retained in its inner recesses a certain quantity of dampness, of water and air, that cluing" to the ravines, caverns, and pits, hollows that the attractive powers of the earth could not pump dry. These sources ox life are hidden from the mortal eye of the astronomer, but, as a matter of fact, they may have nourished a little world of their own for time immemorial.

These moon-creatures probably live in eternal dusk, never look upon the light as we do. To do so would lie death to them. And, according to our modern notions, they live a poor and purposeless life. Their joys are few. It may be they have no conception of what joy is. Yet, with all that, they cling .to life. " That they have power to breathe and to move suffices to make them love life.

How can I describe them? These creatures undoubtedly are winged; they move bird-fashion. They have a double life like some" members of the batracbian reptile family. Their eyes are of the kind that bats and owls possess; their wants are limited like 'the worm's that crawls at our feet. But at the same time their feelings and sentiments are humanaye, they may be more refined and more gentle than our own. AX AWFUL AND PERILOUS I'LACE TO LIVE IN. And, doubtless, they have a strong will; a mind that penetrates the mysteries of the night surrounding them. Theirs is a dangerous world to live in—a world full of glaring contrasts. The heat 011 the moon is awful, and as far beyond our conception as the cold that alternates with it. The creatures I speak of live in the shadow of giant constructions, while their own world is infinitesimal. Their abode is in awful depths, at the very foot of mighty mountain ranges, in the beds of old craters, and in abysses deeper than the deepest mine ever dug on earth. Their dwelling-places are steeped in a reddish light, which shines through crevices and natural windows, clefts in the rock. The light, as I said before, never rises above a certain degree of semi-dusk, but often it assumes the colours of the rainbow.

It is not a quiet life they lead, these moon-creatures. The interior of the dead star is swayed by the tides. The waters come and go; here they are at boiling point in mysterious rock kettles; there are embryo Niagaras losing themselves in unknown depths. The moon's interior is torn by a labyrinth of queer shafts, that begin nowhere and end nowhere, and the deeper one goes the more mysterious floor and walls and ceiling become. Fiery red alternates with heavenly blue, silver colour with blackest night. Vegetation is profuse and curious. Grass and creeping plants grow in rock clefts and at "the bottom of shafts, clothing the endless walls with green, and tiny flowers. Our wildest imagination cau hardly conceive a picture of the creatures dwelling hi this labyrinth. . The queerest animal formations that the scientist's microscope eve'' discovered may be typical there. Possibly too, plant and animal life may bo mixed up in the most incredible mannerincredible to our present understanding. Yet it is not that which ought to interest us most. The great question is: Can these creatures reason? Arc they masters of their surroundings in the manner that man is master of the earth?—By Professor Max Haushofer, of the Universitv of Berlin.