This makes its mass to that of our globe about as 1 to 81.

In other words, it would take eighty-one moons to counterbalance the earth.

Before speaking of the force of gravity on the moon we will examine the character of the lunar surface.
To the naked eye the moon's face appears variegated with dusky patches, while a few points of superior brilliance shine amid the brighter portions, especially in the southern and eastern quarters, where immense craters like Tycho and Copernicus are visible to a keen eye, gleaming like polished buttons.

With a telescope, even of moderate power, the surface of the moon presents a scene of astonishing complexity, in which strangeness, beauty, and grandeur are all combined.

The half of the moon turned earthward contains an area of 7,300,000 square miles, a little greater than the area of South America and a little less than that of North America.