INDIANA FAEMEE.
Vol. V1L]    •   INDIANAPOLIS, IND., MAY, 1858.
[No. II.
May.
Hail, lovely May!
The clouds now break and pass away,
Which well have moist the thirsty earth,
And vegetation now springs forth.
The earth once more begins to bloom,
The warblers raise their matin tune,
And in their most extatic lays
Aloud proclaim their Maker's praise,
Who doth the earth with seed-time bless, •
And nature all in beauty dress.
Why is it that the virgin Spring,
Like bashful maid, stands lingering
Within the fold of Winter's arms,
Afraid to show her flow'ry charms,
'Til April, full of expectation,
Has played a long and cold flirtation ?—
'Til Summer's sun, and Summer show'rs,
Must clothe the Spring in Summer flow'rs?
Has nature to the Winter drear,
Awarded more than half the year,
And shoften'd Summer's genial reign,
Just as she did the life of man?
Or is it but a freak of nature,—
The varied form whieh the Creator
Gave to the seasons of the earth
When first he stretch'd the heavens forth?
And if it comes by Nature's laws,
Then what can be that potent cause,
Which makes the spring come late or soon,
Is it the Earth?   Or is't the Moon?
In regard to the influence of the Moon upon
the earth, as a powerful agent, capable of affecting, for good or for evil, both animal and vegetable life, the ancients seem to have entertained
no doubt. They all believed from observation,
without claiming to know how it could do it,
before they would admit the fact. We doubt
what, to our senses, seems to be true, because
VOL. VII.—3.
we do not understand how the Moon can affect
the earth.
Why shingles, taken from the same block of
timber, and cut at the same time, when nailed
on a building, in the light of the moon, should
warp in one day's sun, and never become straight
again, and remain perfectly straight for ten
years, when put on in the dark of the moon, is
difficult to comprehend. That the moon should
affect the seasons, however, is a very different
thing; because this may result, and indeed must
inevitably result, from the laws of gravitation.
Let us contemplate this subject a moment.
The attraction of the moon upon the earth
creates the tides. The velocity of these tides
augments the water in the Atlantic, at Panama,
and diminishes it in the Pacific, so that at the
Isthmus the Atlantic is seven feet higher than
the Pacific. If no continent intervened, and
the ocean was an open sea round the equator,
for a width of one thousand miles, the velocity
of this tide, in the course of twelve months,
would be so great that a steamship, entering it
from the north, would drift round the earth before it would reach the eddy on the south side.
Or, if, after twelve months unobstructed flow,
a continent were suddenly upheaved across the
equator, the momentum of the current would be
so great that the tide would run thirteen hun- '
dred feet high, and permanently diminish the
rotary motion of the earth, making the number of days in the year less than 365.
This ocean tide, so tangible to our senses, is,
upon rational principles, much less than the
aerial tide which flows westward over it. And
it is well known that this aerial tide, notwithstanding the obstructing land, would become a
devastating tornado, sweeping round the earth,
if the greater heat of the equator did not " boil
up" the atmosphere, and cause the substratum
of air to ascend and play off toward the north
and south poles by an upper current.