James Nasmyth, the engineer of the steam hammer, and the astronomer James Carpenter spent years scrutinising the Moon through powerful telescopes. Their book traces the Moon from the cosmic origin of the planets through its heating and cooling, weighs the question of a lunar atmosphere, and explains its craters and mountains as the work of volcanic eruption, illustrated with photographs of their own plaster models.
A landmark of Victorian amateur astronomy and a striking early attempt at lunar geology. Download the free EPUB.