All around the globe the years following —687 saw activity directed toward reforming the calendar. Between —747 and —687 the calendar was in a chaotic state, the length of the year and of the month, and probably also of the day, repeatedly changing. Before the eighth century there was a comparatively long span of time when the year
41 F. Montesinos (fl. 1628-1639), Memorias antiguas historiales del Peru, II, Chap. 7.
42 Christoval de Molina (fl. 1570 to 1584), An Account of the Fables and Rites of the Yncas, transl. and ed. C. R. Markham (1873), p. 10.
43 Brasseur, Histoire des nations civilisSes du Mexique, p. 122. Among his sources were Ixtlilxochitl, Sumaria relacion, etc.; M. Veytia (1718-1779), Historia antigua de Mexico, I (1944), Chap. 2.
44 A. Gaubil, Histoire de Vastronomie chinoise (1732), pp. 73-86.
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had 360 days and the lunar month consisted of almost exactly thirty days.
Neither the calendar, nor the celestial charts, nor the sundials, nor the water clocks of the time before —687 were adequate for their purpose after that year. Values subsequently established in different parts of the terrestrial globe have remained practically unchanged down to the present save for very small improvements resulting from the more precise calculations of modern times.
This stability of the calendar is due to the fact that the celestial order has remained unaltered: no changes in the heavenly order were observed except for minor perturbations between the planets which have no visible effect on their motion. Thus we are lulled into the belief—which is wishful thinking—that we live in an orderly universe. In the language of a modern scientist:
"Though the order of the succession of events in the heavens is often somewhat complex, it is nevertheless systematic and invariable. The running of no clock ever approached in precision the motions of the sun, the moon, and the stars. In fact, to this day clocks are corrected and regulated by comparing them with the apparent diurnal motions of the heavenly bodies. Since not merely a few but hundreds of celestial phenomena were long ago found to be perfectly orderly, it was gradually perceived that majestic order prevails universally in those regions in which, before the birth of science, capricious gods and goddesses were believed to hold domain." 45
However, as we have learned from the records of ancient times, the order today is not the primeval order; it was established less than twenty-seven centuries ago
when the moon was placed in orbit, when the silver sun was planted, when the Bear was firmly stationed.46
*5 F. R. Moulton, The World and Man as Science Sees Them, p. 2. 46 KalevaJa, Rune 3.
CHAPTER 9
The Moon and Its Craters
THE MOON revolves around the earth and, together with the earth, around the sun, showing one and the same face to the inhabitants of the earth. It can be seen in the telescope that the surface of the moon is covered with seas of dried lava and with great craterlike formations. Since it has no atmosphere, the contours of its surface are clearly visible, and a city or village, if it existed there, could be seen through the Palomar telescope. But it is a dead planet and very inhospitable. For a half-month any place on it is in cold night and for the other half-month in hot sunshine. There is robin-bobin
no water on the planet, no vegetation, and probably no life at all. The ancients were interested to know whether the moon had human settlements, but moderns are concerned with the problem of the origin of the lunar craters.
There are two theories: one sees in them great extinct volcanoes; the other, formations produced by the bombardment of great meteorites on the semiliquid mass of the moon before it solidified.
There are more than thirty thousand such craters, small and large. Some of these circular crests rise as high as 20,000 feet above the plain—their height is measured by the length of their shadows; some, like Clavius near the moon's south pole, are one hundred and fifty miles in diameter. This tremendous width surpasses anything comparable among volcanoes on earth. It is therefore questioned whether these circular mountain formations represent true volcanoes. The largest known crater produced by the impact of a body that fell on the
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earth is in Arizona; it is four fifths of a mile in diameter and much smaller than the crater formations on the moon.
As is readily seen, both theories of lunar craters imply a great catastrophic occurrence. For such craters to have been formed, tremendous forces must have acted from inside or from without; if these formations were caused by impact on a viscous mass, great meteors must have come flying from many directions.
Bright streaks or "rays" up to ten miles wide radiate from some of the craters; their origin, too, is not known. There are also clefts, irregular in form, about half a mile wide and of unknown depth.
In the cosmic catastrophes described in this book the moon was repeatedly involved. Together with the terrestrial globe it passed through the fabric of the great comet of the time of the Exodus, and in the conflicts of the eighth century before the present era, the moon was more than once displaced from its orbit by Mars. During these catastrophes the moon's surface flowed with lava and bubbled into great circular formations, which rapidly cooled off in the long lunar night, unprotected by an atmosphere from the coolness of cosmic spaces. In these cosmic collisions or near contacts the surface of the moon was also marked with clefts and rifts.
The "play" of Mars with the moon was regarded by the Greeks and the Romans as a love affair.1
From the Iliad we learn that Aphrodite (the Greek goddess of the moon) was warned by Jupiter-Zeus not to battle Ares-Mars, but to leave this task to Hera-Earth and Pallas Athene, being herself predestined to the sweet work of love.
Interplanetary contacts in the celestial sphere are in some respects similar to congress and germination in the biological world. In these contacts the bodies of the planets overflow with lava—fertile ground for vegetation—and comets born of such contacts fly across the solar system and rain gases and stones and possibly also spores, germs, or larvae on planets. Thus the notion of the ancients that love affairs were being carried on among the planetary gods and goddesses is a
1 Mars had near contacts with the moon and with the planet Venus, and as a result of these two
"romances" the goddess Venus (Aphrodite) became associated in mythology with the moon as well as with the planet of that name.
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tale for the common people and a philosophical metaphor for the instructed.
The great seas of dried lava and the great craters on the dead planet devoid of air and water bespeak the dreadful devastations, even death itself, that interplanetary contacts can leave in their wake. The great formations of craters, mountains, rifts, and plains of lava on the moon were formed not only in the upheavals described in this book, but also in those which took place in earlier times. The moon is a great unmarked cemetery flying around our earth, a reminder of what can happen to a planet.
The Planet Mars
robin-bobin
The planet Mars, at the present time, completes one revolution around the sun in 687 terrestrial days. Its orbit is entirely outside the earth's orbit, and is an ellipse, like that of the earth, but more stretched out, so that the planet's distance from the sun varies considerably during a revolution.
When Mars and the earth are on different sides of the sun, the distance between them rises to over 200,000,000 miles and may reach 248,600,000 miles. From this moment on, as the distance between the two planets diminishes, Mars nightly grows more and more luminous, changing from an inconspicuous point of light to a most brilliant star, brighter than any fixed star. During a period of little more than a year, it grows fifty-five times brighter. Among the planets it exceeds then even Jupiter in brilliance.