IS THE MOON INHABITED?

This question is again agitating scientists, and of late interesting discoveries have been made at the Lick observatory in California. Prof Holden the director of the observatory has secured through the big telescope better photographs of the moon than have been taken anywhere else, and the work of photographin goes on every hour when the satellite is visible. . . .

Objects upon the moon are detected by their shadows, and a projection or eminence 50 feet high casts a shadow large enough to be seen through the Lick telescope. If Prof. Holden, in studying his series of photographs, should discover some day a new shadow where none had been cast before when the moon was at the same position and under the same light he would know something had been erected upon the surface, either a part of the crust upheaved by some internal movement or a building put up by living creatures. The shape of the shadows might tell the name of the projection. If the moon were inhabited it is very likely the works of man would have been seen before now; the growing and harvesting of crops would produce changes of appearance easily distinguished by the aid of such a glass as the Lick telescope. The moon appears to be a dead, desolate waste of played out volcanos and cooled-off lava beds, without atmosphere, and like Arizona, rather short of water and good society.