neerlego

Updated: June 2, 2025

Many hypotheses have been suggested on the subject, some of which are very ingenious, and all very fanciful: but the two most celebrated, and into which all the others are now merged, are those of Neerlego and Darcandarca; the former of whom, in a treatise extending to nine quarto volumes, has maintained that the disruption was caused by a comet; and the latter, in a work yet more voluminous, has endeavoured to prove, that when the materials of the moon composed a part of the earth, this planet contained large masses of water, which, though the particles cohered with each other, were disposed to fly off from the earth; and that, by an accumulation of the electric fluid, according to laws which he has attempted to explain, the force was at length sufficient to heave the rocks which encompassed these masses, from their beds, and to project them from the earth, when, partaking of the earth's diurnal motion, they assumed a spherical form, and revolved around it.

George Tucker - A Voyage to the Moon