“There exists, from the point of view of relief, a general similarity between the ‘seas’ of the moon and the plateaux which are covered to-day by terrestrial oceans.  In these convex surfaces are more frequent than concave basins, thrown back usually toward the verge of the depressed space.  In the same way the ‘seas’ of the moon present, generally at the edges, rather pronounced depressions.  In one case, as in the other, we observe normal deformations of a shrinking globe shielded from the erosive action of rain, which tends, on the contrary, in all the abundantly watered parts of the earth to make the concave surfaces predominate.  The explanation of this structure, such as is admitted at present by geologists, seems to us equally valid for the moon."[17]

[Footnote 17:  Comptes Rendus, June 26, July 3, 1899.]

It might be urged that there is evidence of former volcanic activity on the moon of such a nature that explosions of steam must have played a part in the phenomena, and if there was steam, of course there was water.

But perhaps the most convincing argument tending to show that the moon once had a supply of water, of which some remnant may yet remain below the surface of the lunar globe, is based upon the probable similarity in composition of the earth and the moon.  This similarity results almost equally whether we regard the moon as having originated in a ring of matter left off from the contracting mass that became the earth, or whether we accept the suggestion of Prof.  G.H.  Darwin, that the moon is the veritable offspring of the earth, brought into being by the assistance of the tidal influence of the sun.  The latter hypothesis is the more picturesque of the two, and, at present, is probably the more generally favored.  It depends upon the theory of tidal friction, which was referred to in Chapter III, as offering an explanation of the manner in which the rotation of the planet Mercury has been slowed down until its rotary period coincides with that of its revolution.

The gist of the hypothesis in question is that at a very early period in its history, when the earth was probably yet in a fluid condition, it rotated with extreme rapidity on its axis, and was, at the same time, greatly agitated by the tidal attraction of the sun, and finally huge masses were detached from the earth which, ultimately uniting, became the moon.[18]

[Footnote 18:  The Tides, by G.H.  Darwin, chapter xvi.]

Born in this manner from the very substance of the earth, the moon would necessarily be composed, in the main, of the same elements as the globe on which we dwell, and is it conceivable that it should not have carried with it both air and water, or the gases from which they were to be formed?  If the moon ever had enough of these prime requisites to enable it to support forms of life comparable with those of the earth, the disappearance of that life must have been a direct consequence of the gradual vanishing of the lunar air and water.  The secular drying up of the oceans and wasting away of the atmosphere on our little neighbor world involved a vast, all-embracing tragedy, some of the earlier scenes of which, if theories be correct, are now reenacted on the half-desiccated planet Mars—­a planet, by the way, which in size, mass, and ability to retain vital gases stands about half-way between the earth and the moon.