The Moon: considered as a planet, a world, and a satellite.

by James Nasmyth; James Carpenter

Fig. 43.
ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE RADIATING BRIGHT STREAKS.

If this familiar illustration be duly considered, we doubt not it will be found to throw considerable light on the nature of those actions which have resulted in the bright streaks on the moon’s surface. Some have attempted to explain the cause of these bright streaks by assigning them to streams of lava, issuing from the crater at the centre of their divergence and flowing over the surface, but we consider such an explanation totally untenable, as any idea of lava, be it ever so fluid at its first issue from its source, flowing in streams of nearly equal width, through courses several hundred miles long, up hills, over mountains, and across plains, appears to us beyond all rational probability.

PLATE XVIII.
ARISTARCHUS & HERODOTUS.

It may be objected to our explanation of the formation of these bright streaks, that so far as our means of observation avail us, we fail to detect any shadows from them or from such marginal edges as might be expected to result from a sideway-spreading outflow of lava from the cracks which afforded it exit in the manner described. Were the edges of these streaks terminated by cliff-like or craggy margins of such height as 30 or 40 feet, we might just be able at low angles of illumination and under the most favourable circumstances of vision, to detect some slight appearance of shadows; but so far as we are aware, no such shadows have been observed. We are led to suppose that the impossibility of detecting them is due not to their absence but to the height of the margins being so moderate as not to cast any cognizable shadow, inasmuch as an abrupt craggy margin of 10 or 15 feet high would, under even the most favourable circumstances, fail to render such visible to us. Reference to our ideal section of one of these bright streaks ([Fig. 45]), will show how thin their edges may be in relation to their spreading width.

The absence of cognizable shadows from the bright streaks has led some observers to conclude that they have no elevation above the surface over which they traverse, and it has therefore been suggested that their existence is due to possible vapours which may have issued through the cracks, and condensed in some sublimated or pulverulent form along their courses, the condensed vapours in question forming a surface of high reflective properties. That metallic or mineral substances of some kinds do deposit on condensation very white powders, or sublimates, we are quite ready to admit, and such explanation of the high luminosity of the bright streaks, and of the craters situated at the foci or centres of their divergence is by no means improbable, so far as concerns their mere brightness. But as we invariably find a crater occupying the centre of divergence, and such craters are possessed of all the characteristic features and details which establish their true volcanic nature as the results of energetic extrusions of lava and scoria, we cannot resist the conclusion that the material of the crater, and that of the bright streaks diverging from it, are not only of a common origin, but are so far identical that the only difference in the structure of the one as compared with the other is due to the more copious egress of the extruded or erupted matter in the case of the crater, while the restricted outflow or ejection of the matter up through the cracks would cause its dispersion to be so comparatively gentle as to flood the sides of the cracks and spread in a thin sheet more or less sideways simultaneously along their courses. There are indeed evidences in the wider of the bright streaks of their being the result of the outflow of lava through systems of cracks running parallel to each other, the confluence of the lava issuing from which would naturally yield the appearance of one streak of great width. Some of those diverging from Tycho are of this class; many other examples might be cited, among which we may name the wide streaks proceeding from the crater Menelaus and also those from Proclus. Some of these occupy widths upwards of 25 miles—amply sufficient to admit of many concurrent cracks with confluent lava outflows.

We are disposed to consider as related to the fore-mentioned radiating streaks, the numerous, we may say the multitudinous, long and narrow chasms that have been sometimes called “canals” or “rills,” but which are so obviously cracks or chasms, that it is desirable that this name should be applied to them rather than one which may mislead by implying an aqueous theory of formation. These cracks, singly and in groups, are found in great numbers in many parts of the moon’s surface. As a few of the more conspicuous examples which our plates exhibit we may refer to the remarkable group west of Treisnecker ([Plate XI].), the principal members of which converge to or cross at a small crater, and thus point to a continuity of causation therewith analogous to the evident relation between the bright streaks and their focal craters. Less remarkable, but no less interesting, are those individual examples that appear in the region north of (below) the Apennines ([Plate IX].), and some of which by their parallelism of direction with the mountain-chain appear to point to a causative relation also. There is one long specimen, and several shorter in the immediate neighbourhood of Mercator and Campanus ([Plate XV].); and another curious system of them, presenting suggestive contortions, occurs in connection with the mountains Aristarchus and Herodotus ([Plate XVIII].). Others, again, appear to be identified with the radial excrescences about Copernicus ([Plate VIII].). Capuanus, Agrippa, and Gassendi, among other craters, have more or less notable cracks in their vicinities.

Some of these chasms are conspicuous enough to be seen with moderate telescopic means, and from this maximum degree of visibility there are all grades downwards to those that require the highest optical powers and the best circumstances for their detection. The earlier selenographers detected but a few of them. Schroeter noted only 11; Lohrman recorded 75 more; Beer and Maedler added 55 to the list, while Schmidt of Athens raised the known number to 425, of which he has published a descriptive catalogue. We take it that this increase of successive discoveries has been due to the progressive perfection of telescopes, or, perhaps, to increased education, so to speak, of the eye, since Schmidt’s telescope is a much smaller instrument than that used by Beer and Maedler, and is regarded by its owner as an inferior one for its size. We doubt not that there are hundreds more of these cracks which more perfect instruments and still sharper eyes will bring to knowledge in the future.

While these chasms have all lengths from 150 miles (which is about the extent of those near Treisnecker) down to a few miles, they appear to have a less variable breadth, since we do not find many that at their maximum openings exceed two miles across; about a mile or less is their usual width throughout the greater part of their length, and generally they taper off to invisibility at their extremities, where they do not encounter and terminate at a crater or other asperity, which is, however, sometimes the case. Of their depth we can form no precise estimate, though from the sharpness of their edges we may conclude that their sides approach perpendicularity, and, therefore, that their depth is very great; we have elsewhere suggested ten miles as a possible profundity. In a few cases, and under very favourable circumstances, we have observed their generally black interiors to be interrupted here and there with bright spots suggestive of fragments from the sides of the cracks having fallen into the opening.

In seeking an explanation of these cracks, two possible causes suggest themselves. One is the expansion of subsurface matter, already suggested as explanatory of the bright streaks; the other, a contraction of the crust by cooling. We doubt not that both causes have been at work, one perhaps enhancing the other. Where, as in the cases we have pointed out, there are cracks which are so connected with craters as to imply relationship, we may conclude that an upheaving or expansive force in the sublunar molten matter has given rise to the cracks, and that the central craters have been formed simultaneously, by the release, with ejective violence, of the matter from its confining crust. The nature of the expansive force being assumed that of solidifying matter, the wide extent of some chasms indicates a deep location of that force. And depth in this matter implies lateness (in the scale of selenological time) of operation, since the central portions of the globe would be the last to cool. Now, we have evidence of comparative lateness afforded by the fact that in many cases the cracks have passed through craters and other asperities which thus obviously existed before the cracking commenced; and thus, so far, the hypothesis of the expansion-cracking is supported by absolute fact.