IS THE MOON DEAD?

Waikato Independent, Volume XXII, Issue 2491, 7 January 1922, Page 3

IS THE MOON DEAD?

TRENCH SCIENTIST'S THEORY

The theories of Professor Pickering of .Harvard University, as to the possibility of some sort of vegetable life existing on the moon, are rejected by M. lo Morvan, the astronomer at the Paris Observatory.

According to Professor Pickering, at the beginning of the lunar day immense zones of vegetation spring lip quickly in the craters.

M. le Morvan replies that this phenomenon is really a chromatic display. He says he has observed immense zones' of green, but lie believes that they are duo to the rays of the sun refracted from myriads of pointed crystals and semi-transparent, rocks, -which abound in the.volcanic regions. ,;

He argues that the green is seen only when the rays of the sun strike the moon at a very acute angle/ and that when the sun rises in the lunar day the colour disappears. Moreover; the green zones spread over such •. tremendous areas in only a few minutes that vegetation would' not. have time to develop and ;die so quickly.

The "blizzards, volcanic eruptions, frogs and clouds," reported by Professor Pickering,, are put down by M. le Morvan, to agitation in the world's atmosphere. ' According to , observations made from Paris, "the moon is dead."