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Hence no other satellite ever possessed tide-raising capabilities in the least comparable to those of the moon. We conclude once more that tidal friction had an influence here very different from its influence elsewhere. Quite possibly, however, that influence may be more nearly spent than in less advanced combinations of revolving globes. Mr.
The immediate effect of either is, as already explained, to destroy the rotation of the body on which the tide is raised, as regards the tide-raising body, bringing it to turn always the same face towards its disturber. This, we can see, has been completely brought about in the case of the moon. There is, however, a secondary or reactive effect. Action is always mutual.
Nay, the process will be continued should our oceans survive so long by the feebler tide-raising power of the sun, ceasing only when day and night cease to alternate, when one side of our planet is plunged in perpetual darkness and the other seared by unchanging light. Here, then, we have the secret of the moon's turning always the same face towards the earth.
The feebleness of its tide-raising power obliged it to remain behind its companions; for there is no sign of its being more juvenile than the Galilean quartette. The yielding of plastic bodies to the strain of unequal attractions is a phenomenon of far-reaching consequence. We know that the sun as well as the moon causes tides in our oceans.
This is found not to have been the case with any other of the planets. What follows? The tide-raising power of a body grows with vicinity in a rapidly accelerated ratio. Lunar tides must then have been on an enormous scale when the moon swung round at a fraction of its actual distance from the earth. But no other satellite with which we are acquainted occupied at any time a corresponding position.
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