At the time when the moon was converted into a solid body, the action of the earth compelled it to assume a less regular figure than if no attracting body had been situate in its vicinity.  The action of our globe rendered elliptical an equator which otherwise would have been circular.  This disturbing action did not prevent the lunar equator from bulging out in every direction, but the prominence of the equatorial diameter directed towards the earth became four times greater than that of the diameter which we see perpendicularly.

The moon would appear then, to an observer situate in space and examining it transversely, to be elongated towards the earth, to be a sort of pendulum without a point of suspension.  When a pendulum deviates from the vertical, the action of gravity brings it back; when the principal axis of the moon recedes from its usual direction, the earth in like manner compels it to return.

We have here, then, a complete explanation of a singular phenomenon, without the necessity of having recourse to the existence of an almost miraculous equality between two movements of translation and rotation, entirely independent of each other.  Mankind will never see but one face of the moon.  Observation had informed us of this fact; now we know further that this is due to a physical cause which may be calculated, and which is visible only to the mind’s eye,—­that it is attributable to the elongation which the diameter of the moon experienced when it passed from the liquid to the solid state under the attractive influence of the earth.

If there had existed originally a slight difference between the movements of rotation and revolution of the moon, the attraction of the earth would have reduced these movements to a rigorous equality.  This attraction would have even sufficed to cause the disappearance of a slight want of coincidence in the intersections of the equator and orbit of the moon with the plane of the ecliptic.

The memoir in which Lagrange has so successfully connected the laws of libration with the principles of gravitation, is no less remarkable for intrinsic excellence than style of execution.  After having perused this production, the reader will have no difficulty in admitting that the word elegance may be appropriately applied to mathematical researches.

In this analysis we have merely glanced at the astronomical discoveries of Clairaut, D’Alembert, and Lagrange.  We shall be somewhat less concise in noticing the labours of Laplace.

After having enumerated the various forces which must result from the mutual action of the planets and satellites of our system, even the great Newton did not venture to investigate the general nature of the effects produced by them.  In the midst of the labyrinth formed by increases and diminutions of velocity, variations in the forms of the orbits, changes of distances and inclinations, which these forces must evidently produce,