A few years later an astronomer of Dantzig, Hevelius—by operations which were only exact twice a month, at the first and second quadrature—reduced Galileo's heights to one-twenty-sixth only of the lunar diameter. This was an exaggeration the other way. But it is to this savant that the first map of the moon is due. The light round spots there form circular mountains, and the dark spots indicate vast seas which, in reality, are plains. To these mountains and extents of sea he gave terrestrial denominations. There is a Sinai in the middle of an Arabia, Etna in the centre of Sicily, the Alps, Apennines, Carpathians, the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the Caspian, &c.—names badly applied, for neither mountains nor seas recalled the configuration of their namesakes on the globe. That large white spot, joined on the south to vaster continents and terminated in a point, could hardly be recognised as the inverted image of the Indian Peninsula, the Bay of Bengal, and Cochin-China. So these names were not kept. Another chartographer, knowing human nature better, proposed a fresh nomenclature, which human vanity made haste to adopt.

This observer was Father Riccioli, a contemporary of Hevelius. He drew up a rough map full of errors. But he gave to the lunar mountains the names of great men of antiquity and savants of his own epoch.

A third map of the moon was executed in the seventeenth century by Dominique Cassini; superior to that of Riccioli in the execution, it is inexact in the measurements. Several smaller copies were published, but the plate long kept in the Imprimerie Nationale was sold by weight as old brass.

La Hire, a celebrated mathematician and designer, drew up a map of the moon four and a half yards high, which was never engraved.

After him, a German astronomer, Tobie Marger, about the middle of the eighteenth century, began the publication of a magnificent selenographic map, according to lunar measures, which he rigorously verified; but his death, which took place in 1762, prevented the termination of this beautiful work.

It was in 1830 that Messrs. Boeer and Moedler composed their celebrated Mappa Selenographica, according to an orthographical projection. This map reproduces the exact lunar disc, such as it appears, only the configurations of the mountains and plains are only correct in the central part; everywhere else—in the northern or southern portions, eastern or western—the configurations foreshortened cannot be compared with those of the centre. This topographical map, one yard high and divided into four parts, is a masterpiece of lunar chartography.

After these savants may be cited the selenographic reliefs of the German astronomer Julius Schmidt, the topographical works of Father Secchi, the magnificent sheets of the English amateur, Waren de la Rue, and lastly a map on orthographical projection of Messrs. Lecouturier and Chapuis, a fine model set up in 1860, of very correct design and clear outlines.

Such is the nomenclature of the different maps relating to the lunar world. Barbicane possessed two, that of Messrs. Boeer and Moedler and that of Messrs. Chapuis and Lecouturier. They were to make his work of observer easier.

They had excellent marine glasses specially constructed for this journey. They magnified objects a hundred times; they would therefore have reduced the distance between the earth and the moon to less than 1,000 leagues. But then at a distance which towards 3 a.m. did not exceed a hundred miles, and in a medium which no atmosphere obstructed, these instruments brought the lunar level to less than fifteen hundred metres.



CHAPTER XI.

IMAGINATION AND REALITY.

"Have you ever seen the moon?" a professor asked one of his pupils ironically.

"No, sir," answered the pupil more ironically still, "but I have heard it spoken of."

In one sense the jocose answer of the pupil might have been made by the immense majority of sublunary beings. How many people there are who have heard the moon spoken of and have never seen it—at least through a telescope! How many even have never examined the map of their satellite!

Looking at a comprehensive selenographic map, one peculiarity strikes us at once. In contrast to the geographical arrangements of the earth and Mars, the continents occupy the more southern hemisphere of the lunar globe. These continents have not such clear and regular boundary-lines as those of South America, Africa, and the Indian Peninsula. Their angular, capricious, and deeply-indented coasts are rich in gulfs and peninsulas. They recall the confusion in the islands of the Sound, where the earth is excessively cut up. If navigation has ever existed upon the surface of the moon it must have been exceedingly difficult and dangerous, and the Selenite mariners and hydrographers were greatly to be pitied, the former when they came upon these perilous coasts, the latter when they were marine surveying on the stormy banks.

It may also be noticed that upon the lunar spheroid the South Pole is much more continental than the North Pole. On the latter there is only a slight strip of land capping it, separated from the other continents by vast seas. (When the word "seas" is used the vast plains probably covered by the sea formerly must be understood.) On the south the land covers nearly the whole hemisphere. It is, therefore, possible that the Selenites have already planted their flag on one of their poles, whilst Franklin, Ross, Kane, Dumont d'Urville, and Lambert have been unable to reach this unknown point on the terrestrial globe.

Islands are numerous on the surface of the moon. They are almost all oblong or circular, as though traced with a compass, and seem to form a vast archipelago, like that charming group lying between Greece and Asia Minor which mythology formerly animated with its most graceful legends. Involuntarily the names of Naxos, Tenedos, Milo, and Carpathos come into the mind, and you seek the ship of Ulysses or the "clipper" of the Argonauts. That was what it appeared to Michel Ardan; it was a Grecian Archipelago that he saw on the map. In the eyes of his less imaginative companions the aspect of these shores recalled rather the cut-up lands of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia; and where the Frenchman looked for traces of the heroes of fable, these Americans were noting favourable points for the establishment of mercantile houses in the interest of lunar commerce and industry.

Some remarks on the orographical disposition of the moon must conclude the description of its continents, chains of mountains, isolated mountains, amphitheatres, and watercourses. The moon is like an immense Switzerland—a continual Norway, where Plutonic influence has done everything. This surface, so profoundly rugged, is the result of the successive contractions of the crust while the orb was being formed. The lunar disc is propitious for the study of great geological phenomena. According to the remarks of some astronomers, its surface, although more ancient than the surface of the earth, has remained newer. There there is no water to deteriorate the primitive relief, the continuous action of which produces a sort of general levelling. No air, the decomposing influence of which modifies orographical profiles. There Pluto's work, unaltered by Neptune's, is in all its native purity. It is the earth as she was before tides and currents covered her with layers of soil.

After having wandered over these vast continents the eye is attracted by still vaster seas. Not only does their formation, situation, and aspect recall the terrestrial oceans, but, as upon earth, these seas occupy the largest part of the globe. And yet these are not liquid tracts, but plains, the nature of which the travellers hoped soon to determine.

Astronomers, it must be owned, have decorated these pretended seas with at least odd names which science has respected at present. Michel Ardan was right when he compared this map to a "map of tenderness," drawn up by Scudery or Cyrano de Bergerac.

"Only," added he, "it is no longer the map of sentiment like that of the 18th century; it is the map of life, clearly divided into two parts, the one feminine, the other masculine. To the women, the right hemisphere; to the men, the left!"

When he spoke thus Michel made his prosaic companions shrug their shoulders. Barbicane and Nicholl looked at the lunar map from another point of view to that of their imaginative friend. However, their imaginative friend had some reason on his side. Judge if he had not.

In the left hemisphere stretches the "Sea of Clouds," where human reason is so often drowned. Not far off appears the "Sea of Rains," fed by all the worries of existence. Near lies the "Sea of Tempests," where man struggles incessantly against his too-often victorious passions. Then, exhausted by deceptions, treasons, infidelities, and all the procession of terrestrial miseries, what does he find at the end of his career? The vast "Sea of Humours," scarcely softened by some drops from the waters of the "Gulf of Dew!" Clouds, rain, tempests, humours, does the life of man contain aught but these? and is it not summed up in these four words?

The right-hand hemisphere dedicated to "the women" contains smaller seas, the significant names of which agree with every incident of feminine existence. There is the "Sea of Serenity," over which bends the young maiden, and the "Lake of Dreams," which reflects her back a happy future. The "Sea of Nectar," with its waves of tenderness and breezes of love! The "Sea of Fecundity," the "Sea of Crises," and the "Sea of Vapours," the dimensions of which are, perhaps, too restricted, and lastly, that vast "Sea of Tranquillity" where all false passions, all useless dreams, all unassuaged desires are absorbed, and the waves of which flow peacefully into the "Lake of Death!"

What a strange succession of names! What a singular division of these two hemispheres of the moon, united to one another like man and woman, and forming a sphere of life, carried through space. And was not the imaginative Michel right in thus interpreting the fancies of the old astronomers?

But whilst his imagination thus ran riot on the "seas," his grave companions were looking at things more geographically. They were learning this new world by heart. They were measuring its angles and diameters.

To Barbicane and Nicholl the "Sea of Clouds" was an immense depression of ground, with circular mountains scattered about on it; covering a great part of the western side of the southern hemisphere, it covered 184,800 square leagues, and its centre was in south latitude 15 deg., and west longitude 20 deg.. The Ocean of Tempests, Oceanus Procellarum, the largest plain on the lunar disc, covered a surface of 328,300 square leagues, its centre being in north latitude 10 deg., and east longitude 45 deg.. From its bosom emerge the admirable shining mountains of Kepler and Aristarchus.

More to the north, and separated from the Sea of Clouds by high chains of mountains, extends the Sea of Rains, Mare Imbrium, having its central point in north latitude 35 deg. and east longitude 20 deg.; it is of a nearly circular form, and covers a space of 193,000 leagues. Not far distant the Sea of Humours, Mare Humorum, a little basin of 44,200 square leagues only, was situated in south latitude 25 deg., and east longitude 40 deg.. Lastly, three gulfs lie on the coast of this hemisphere—the Torrid Gulf, the Gulf of Dew, and the Gulf of Iris, little plains inclosed by high chains of mountains.

The "Feminine" hemisphere, naturally more capricious, was distinguished by smaller and more numerous seas. These were, towards the north, the Mare Frigoris, in north latitude 55 deg. and longitude 0 deg., with 76,000 square leagues of surface, which joined the Lake of Death and Lake of Dreams; the Sea of Serenity, Mare Serenitatis, by north latitude 25 deg. and west longitude 20 deg., comprising a surface of 80,000 square leagues; the Sea of Crises, Mare Crisium, round and very compact, in north latitude 17 deg. and west longitude 55 deg., a surface of 40,000 square leagues, a veritable Caspian buried in a girdle of mountains. Then on the equator, in north latitude 5 deg. and west longitude 25 deg., appeared the Sea of Tranquillity, Mare Tranquillitatis, occupying 121,509 square leagues of surface; this sea communicated on the south with the Sea of Nectar, Mare Nectaris, an extent of 28,800 square leagues, in south latitude 15 deg. and west longitude 35 deg., and on the east with the Sea of Fecundity, Mare Fecunditatis, the vastest in this hemisphere, occupying 219,300 square leagues, in south latitude 3 deg. and west longitude 50 deg.. Lastly, quite to the north and quite to the south lie two more seas, the Sea of Humboldt, Mare Humboldtianum, with a surface of 6,500 square leagues, and the Southern Sea, Mare Australe, with a surface of 26,000.

In the centre of the lunar disc, across the equator and on the zero meridian, lies the centre gulf, Sinus Medii, a sort of hyphen between the two hemispheres.

Thus appeared to the eyes of Nicholl and Barbicane the surface always visible of the earth's satellite. When they added up these different figures they found that the surface of this hemisphere measured 4,738,160 square leagues, 3,317,600 of which go for volcanoes, chains of mountains, amphitheatres, islands—in a word, all that seems to form the solid portion of the globe—and 1,410,400 leagues for the seas, lake, marshes, and all that seems to form the liquid portion, all of which was perfectly indifferent to the worthy Michel.

It will be noticed that this hemisphere is thirteen and a-half times smaller than the terrestrial hemisphere. And yet upon it selenographers have already counted 50,000 craters. It is a rugged surface worthy of the unpoetical qualification of "green cheese" which the English have given it.

When Barbicane pronounced this disobliging name Michel Ardan gave a bound.

"That is how the Anglo-Saxons of the 19th century treat the beautiful Diana, the blonde Phoebe, the amiable Isis, the charming Astarte, the Queen of Night, the daughter of Latona and Jupiter, the younger sister of the radiant Apollo!"



CHAPTER XII.

OROGRAPHICAL DETAILS.

It has already been pointed out that the direction followed by the projectile was taking us towards the northern hemisphere of the moon. The travellers were far from that central point which they ought to have touched if their trajectory had not suffered an irremediable deviation.

It was half-past twelve at night. Barbicane then estimated his distance at 1,400 kilometres, a distance rather greater than the length of the lunar radius, and which must diminish as he drew nearer the North Pole. The projectile was then not at the altitude of the equator, but on the tenth parallel, and from that latitude carefully observed on the map as far as the Pole, Barbicane and his two companions were able to watch the moon under the most favourable circumstances.

In fact, by using telescopes, this distance of 1,400 kilometres was reduced to fourteen miles, or four and a-half leagues. The telescope of the Rocky Mountains brought the moon still nearer, but the terrestrial atmosphere singularly lessened its optical power. Thus Barbicane, in his projectile, by looking through his glass, could already perceive certain details almost imperceptible to observers on the earth.

"My friends," then said the president in a grave voice, "I do not know where we are going, nor whether we shall ever see the terrestrial globe again. Nevertheless, let us do our work as if one day it would be of use to our fellow-creatures. Let us keep our minds free from all preoccupation. We are astronomers. This bullet is the Cambridge Observatory transported into space. Let us make our observations."

That said, the work was begun with extreme precision, and it faithfully reproduced the different aspects of the moon at the variable distances which the projectile reached in relation to that orb.

Whilst the bullet was at the altitude of the 10th north parallel it seemed to follow the 20th degree of east longitude.

Here may be placed an important remark on the subject of the map which they used for their observations. In the selenographic maps, where, on account of the reversal of objects by the telescope, the south is at the top and the north at the bottom, it seems natural that the east should be on the left and the west on the right. However, it is not so. If the map were turned upside down, and showed the moon as she appears, the east would be left and the west right, the inverse of the terrestrial maps. The reason of this anomaly is the following:—Observers situated in the northern hemisphere—in Europe, for example—perceive the moon in the south from them. When they look at her they turn their backs to the north, the opposite position they take when looking at a terrestrial map. Their backs being turned to the north, they have the east to the left and the west to the right. For observers in the southern hemisphere—in Patagonia, for example—the west of the moon would be on their left and the east on their right, for the south would be behind them.

Such is the reason for the apparent reversal of these two cardinal points, and this must be remembered whilst following the observations of President Barbicane.

Helped by the Mappa Selenographica of Boeer and Moedler, the travellers could, without hesitating, survey that portion of the disc in the field of their telescopes.

"What are we looking at now?" asked Michel.

"At the northern portion of the Sea of Clouds," answered Barbicane. "We are too far off to make out its nature. Are those plains composed of dry sand, as the first astronomers believed? Or are they only immense forests, according to the opinion of Mr. Waren de la Rue, who grants a very low but very dense atmosphere to the moon? We shall find that out later on. We will affirm nothing till we are quite certain."

"This Sea of Clouds is rather doubtfully traced upon the maps. It is supposed that this vast plain is strewn with blocks of lava vomited by the neighbouring volcanoes on its right side, Ptolemy, Purbach, and Arzachel. The projectile was drawing sensibly nearer, and the summits which close in this sea on the north were distinctly visible. In front rose a mountain shining gloriously, the top of which seemed drowned in the solar rays."

"That mountain is—?" asked Michel.

"Copernicus," answered Barbicane.

"Let us have a look at Copernicus," said Michel.

This mountain, situated in north latitude 9 deg., and east longitude 20 deg., rises to a height of nearly 11,000 feet above the surface of the moon. It is quite visible from the earth, and astronomers can study it with ease, especially during the phase between the last quarter and the new moon, because then shadows are thrown lengthways from east to west, and allow the altitudes to be taken.

Copernicus forms the most important radiating system in the southern hemisphere, according to Tycho Brahe. It rises isolated like a gigantic lighthouse over that of the Sea of Clouds bordering on the Sea of Tempests, and it lights two oceans at once with its splendid rays. Those long luminous trails, so dazzling at full moon, made a spectacle without an equal; they pass the boundary chains on the north, and stretch as far as the Sea of Rains. At 1 a.m., terrestrial time, the projectile, like a balloon carried into space, hung over this superb mountain.

Barbicane could perfectly distinguish its chief features. Copernicus is comprehended in the series of annular mountains of the first order in the division of the large amphitheatres. Like the mountains of Kepler and Aristarchus, which overlook the Ocean of Tempests, it appears sometimes like a brilliant point through the pale light, and used to be taken for a volcano in activity. But it is only an extinct volcano, like those on that side of the moon. Its circumference presented a diameter of about twenty-two leagues. The glasses showed traces of stratifications in it produced by successive eruptions, and its neighbourhood appeared strewn with volcanic remains, which were still seen in the crater.

"There exist," said Barbicane, "several sorts of amphitheatres an the surface of the moon, and it is easy to see that Copernicus belongs to the radiating class. If we were nearer it we should perceive the cones which bristle in the interior, and which were formerly so many fiery mouths. A curious arrangement, and one without exception on the lunar disc, is presented on the interior surface of these amphitheatres, being notably downward from the exterior plane, a contrary form to that which terrestrial craters present. It follows, therefore, that the general curvature at the bottom of these amphitheatres gives us fear of an inferior diameter to that of the moon."

"What is the reason of this special arrangement?" asked Nicholl.

"It is not known," answered Barbicane.

"How splendidly it shines!" said Michel. "I think it would be difficult to see a more beautiful spectacle!"

"What should you say, then," answered Barbicane, "if the chances of our journey should take us towards the southern hemisphere?"

"Well, I should say it is finer still," replied Michel Ardan.

At that moment the projectile hung right over the amphitheatre. The circumference of Copernicus formed an almost perfect circle, and its steep ramparts were clearly defined. A second circular inclosure could even be distinguished. A grey plain of wild aspect spread around on which every relief appeared yellow. At the bottom of the amphitheatre, as if in a jewel-case, sparkled for one instant two or three eruptive cones like enormous dazzling gems. Towards the north the sides of the crater were lowered into a depression which would probably have given access to the interior of the crater.

As they passed above the surrounding plain Barbicane was able to note a large number of mountains of slight importance, amongst others a little circular mountain called "Gay-Lussac," more than twenty-three kilometres wide. Towards the south the plain was very flat, without one elevation or projection of the soil. Towards the north, on the contrary, as far as the place where it borders on the Ocean of Tempests, it was like a liquid surface agitated by a storm, of which the hills and hollows formed a succession of waves suddenly coagulated. Over the whole of this, and in all directions, ran the luminous trails which converged to the summit of Copernicus. Some had a width of thirty kilometres over a length that could not be estimated.

The travellers discussed the origin of these strange rays, but they could not determine their nature any better than terrestrial observers.

"Why," said Nicholl, "may not these rays be simply the spurs of the mountains reflecting the light of the sun more vividly?"

"No," answered Barbicane, "if it were so in certain conditions of the moon they would throw shadows, which they do not."

In fact, these rays only appear when the sun is in opposition with the moon, and they disappear as soon as its rays become oblique.

"But what explanation of these trails of light have been imagined?" asked Michel, "for I cannot believe that savants would ever stop short for want of explanation."

"Yes," answered Barbicane, "Herschel has uttered an opinion, but he does not affirm it."

"Never mind; what is his opinion?"

"He thought that these rays must be streams of cold lava which shone when the sun struck them normally."

"That may be true, but nothing is less certain. However, if we pass nearer to Tycho we shall be in a better position to find out the cause of this radiation."

"What do you think that plain is like, seen from the height we are at?" asked Michel.

"I don't know," answered Nicholl.

"Well, with all these pieces of lava, sharpened like spindles, it looks like 'an immense game of spilikins,' thrown down pell-mell. We only want a hook to draw them up."

"Be serious for once in your life," said Barbicane.

"I will be serious," replied Michel tranquilly, "and instead of spilikins let us say they are bones. This plain would then be only an immense cemetery upon which would repose the immortal remains of a thousand distinct generations. Do you like that comparison better?"

"One is as good as the other," answered Barbicane.

"The devil! You are difficult to please," replied Michel.

"My worthy friend," resumed the prosaic Barbicane, "it does not matter what it looks like when we don't know what it is."

"A good answer," exclaimed Michel; "that will teach me to argue with savants."

In the meantime the projectile went with almost uniform speed round the lunar disc. It may be easily imagined that the travellers did not dream of taking a minute's rest. A fresh landscape lay before their eyes every instant. About half-past one in the morning they caught a glimpse of the summit of another mountain. Barbicane consulted his map, and recognised Eratosthenes.

It was a circular mountain 4,500 metres high, one of those amphitheatres so numerous upon the satellite. Barbicane informed his friends of Kepler's singular opinion upon the formation of these circles. According to the celebrated mathematician, these crateriform cavities had been dug out by the hand of man.

"What for?" asked Nicholl.

"In order to preserve themselves from the ardour of the solar rays, which strike the moon during fifteen consecutive days."

"The Selenites were not fools!" said Michel.

"It was a singular idea!" answered Nicholl. "But it is probable that Kepler did not know the real dimensions of these circles, for digging them would have been giants' labour, impracticable for Selenites."

"Why so, if the weight on the surface of the moon is six times less than upon the surface of the earth?" said Michel.

"But if the Selenites are six times smaller?" replied Nicholl.

"And if there are no Selenites?" added Barbicane, which terminated the discussion.

Eratosthenes soon disappeared from the horizon without the projectile having been sufficiently near it to allow a rigorous observation. This mountain separated the Apennines from the Carpathians.

In lunar orography, several chains of mountains have been distinguished which are principally distributed over the northern hemisphere. Some, however, occupy certain portions of the southern hemisphere.

The following is a list of these different chains, with their latitudes and the height of their highest summits:—

deg. deg. metres. Mounts Doerfel 84 to 0 S. lat. 7,603 " Leibnitz 65 " 0 " 7,600 " Rook 20 " 30 " 1,600 " Altai 17 " 28 " 4,047 " Cordilleras 10 " 20 " 3,898 " Pyrenees 8 " 18 " 3,631 " Oural 5 " 13 " 838 " Alembert 4 " 10 " 5,847 " Hoemus 8 " 21 N. lat. 2,021 " Carpathians 15 " 19 " 1,939 " Apennines 14 " 27 " 5,501 " Taurus 21 " 28 " 2,746 " Riphees 25 " 33 " 4,171 " Hercynians 17 " 29 " 1,170 " Caucasia 32 " 41 " 5,567 " Alps 42 " 49 " 3,617

The most important of these different chains is that of the Apennines, the development of which extends 150 leagues, and is yet inferior to that of the great orographical movements of the earth. The Apennines run along the eastern border of the Sea of Rains, and are continued on the north by the Carpathians, the profile of which measures about 100 leagues.

The travellers could only catch a glimpse of the summit of these Apennines which lie between west long. 10 deg. and east long. 16 deg.; but the chain of the Carpathians was visible from 18 deg. to 30 deg. east long., and they could see how they were distributed.

One hypothesis seemed to them very justifiable. Seeing that this chain of the Carpathians was here and there circular in form and with high peaks, they concluded that it anciently formed important amphitheatres. These mountainous circles must have been broken up by the vast cataclysm to which the Sea of Rains was due. These Carpathians looked then what the amphitheatres of Purbach, Arzachel, and Ptolemy would if some cataclysm were to throw down their left ramparts and transform them into continuous chains. They present an average height of 3,200 metres, a height comparable to certain of the Pyrenees. Their southern slopes fall straight into the immense Sea of Rains.

About 2 a.m. Barbicane was at the altitude of the 20th lunar parallel, not far from that little mountain, 1,559 metres high, which bears the name of Pythias. The distance from the projectile to the moon was only 1,200 kilometres, brought by means of telescopes to two and a half leagues.

The "Mare Imbrium" lay before the eyes of the travellers like an immense depression of which the details were not very distinct. Near them on the left rose Mount Lambert, the altitude of which is estimated at 1,813 metres, and farther on, upon the borders of the Ocean of Tempests, in north lat. 23 deg. and east long. 29 deg., rose the shining mountain of Euler. This mountain, which rises only 1,815 metres above the lunar surface, has been the object of an interesting work by the astronomer Schroeter. This savant, trying to find out the origin of the lunar mountains, asked himself whether the volume of the crater always looked equal to the volume of the ramparts that formed it. Now this he found to be generally the case, and he hence concluded that a single eruption of volcanic matter had sufficed to form these ramparts, for successive eruptions would have destroyed the connection. Mount Euler alone was an exception to this general law, and it must have taken several successive eruptions to form it, for the volume of its cavity is double that of its inclosure.

All these hypotheses were allowable to terrestrial observers whose instruments were incomplete; but Barbicane was no longer contented to accept them, and seeing that his projectile drew regularly nearer the lunar disc he did not despair of ultimately reaching it, or at least of finding out the secrets of its formation.



CHAPTER XIII.

LUNAR LANDSCAPES.

At half-past two in the morning the bullet was over the 30th lunar parallel at an effective distance of 1,000 kilometres, reduced by the optical instruments to ten. It still seemed impossible that it could reach any point on the disc. Its movement of translation, relatively slow, was inexplicable to President Barbicane. At that distance from the moon it ought to have been fast in order to maintain it against the power of attraction. The reason of that phenomenon was also inexplicable; besides, time was wanting to seek for the cause. The reliefs on the lunar surface flew beneath their eyes, and they did not want to lose a single detail.

The disc appeared through the telescopes at a distance of two and a half leagues. If an aeronaut were taken up that distance from the earth, what would he distinguish upon its surface? No one can tell, as the highest ascensions have not exceeded 8,000 metres.

The following, however, is an exact description of what Barbicane and his companions saw from that height:—

Large patches of different colours appeared on the disc. Selenographers do not agree about their nature. They are quite distinct from each other. Julius Schmidt is of opinion that if the terrestrial oceans were dried up, a Selenite observer could only tell the difference between the terrestrial oceans and continental plains by patches of colour as distinctly varied as those which a terrestrial observer sees upon the moon. According to him, the colour common to the vast plains, known under the name of "seas," is dark grey, intermingled with green and brown. Some of the large craters are coloured in the same way.

Barbicane knew this opinion of the German selenographer; it is shared by Messrs. Boeer and Moedler. He noticed that they were right, whilst certain astronomers, who only allow grey colouring on the surface of the moon, are wrong. In certain places the green colour was very vivid; according to Julius Schmidt, it is so in the Seas of Serenity and Humours. Barbicane likewise remarked the wide craters with no interior cones, which are of a bluish colour, analogous to that of fresh-polished sheets of steel. These colours really belonged to the lunar disc, and did not result, as certain astronomers think, either from some imperfection in the object-glasses of the telescopes or the interposition of the terrestrial atmosphere. Barbicane had no longer any doubt about it. He was looking at it through the void, and could not commit any optical error. He considered that the existence of this different colouring was proved to science. Now were the green shades owing to tropical vegetation, kept up by a low and dense atmosphere? He could not yet be certain.

Farther on he noticed a reddish tinge, quite sufficiently distinct. A similar colour had already been observed upon the bottom of an isolated inclosure, known under the name of the Lichtenberg Amphitheatre, which is situated near the Hercynian Mountains, on the border of the moon. But he could not make out its nature.

He was not more fortunate about another peculiarity of the disc, for he could not find out its cause. The peculiarity was the following one:—

Michel Ardan was watching near the president when he remarked some long white lines brilliantly lighted up by the direct rays of the sun. It was a succession of luminous furrows, very different from the radiation that Copernicus had presented. They ran in parallel lines.

Michel, with his usual readiness, exclaimed—

"Why, there are cultivated fields!"

"Cultivated fields!" repeated Nicholl, shrugging his shoulders.

"Ploughed fields, at all events," replied Michel Ardan. "But what ploughmen these Selenites must be, and what gigantic oxen they must harness to their ploughs, to make such furrows!"

"They are not furrows, they are crevices!"

"Crevices let them be," answered Michel with docility. "Only what do you mean by crevices in the world of science?" Barbicane soon told his companions all he knew about lunar crevices. He knew that they were furrows observed upon all the non-mountainous parts of the lunar disc; that these furrows, generally isolated, were from four to five leagues only; that their width varies from 1,000 to 1,500 metres, and their edges are rigorously parallel. But he knew nothing more about their formation or their nature.

Barbicane watched these furrows through his telescope very attentively. He noticed that their banks were exceedingly steep. They were long parallel ramparts; with a little imagination they might be taken for long lines of fortifications raised by Selenite engineers.

Some of these furrows were as straight as if they had been cut by line, others were slightly curved through with edges still parallel. Some crossed each other. Some crossed craters. Some furrowed the circular cavities, such as Posidonius or Petavius. Some crossed the seas, notably the Sea of Serenity.

These accidents of Nature had naturally exercised the imagination of terrestrial astronomers. The earliest observations did not discover these furrows. Neither Hevelius, Cassini, La Hire, nor Herschel seems to have known them. It was Schroeter who in 1789 first attracted the attention of savants to them. Others followed who studied them, such as Pastorff, Gruithuysen, Boeer, and Moedler. At present there are seventy-six; but though they have been counted, their nature has not yet been determined. They are not fortifications certainly, anymore than they are beds of dried-up rivers, for water so light on the surface of the moon could not have dug such ditches, and there furrows often cross craters at a great elevation.

It must, however, be acknowledged that Michel Ardan had an idea, and that, without knowing it, he shared it with Julius Schmidt.

"Why," said he, "may not these inexplicable appearances be simply phenomena of vegetation?"

"In what way do you mean?" asked Barbicane.

"Now do not be angry, worthy president," answered Michel, "but may not these black lines be regular rows of trees?"

"Do you want to find some vegetation?" said Barbicane.

"I want to explain what you scientific men do not explain! My hypothesis will at least explain why these furrows disappear, or seem to disappear, at regular epochs."

"Why should they?"

"Because trees might become invisible when they lose their leaves, and visible when they grow again."

"Your explanation is ingenious, old fellow," answered Barbicane, "but it cannot be admitted."

"Why?"

"Because it cannot be said to be any season on the surface of the moon, and, consequently, the phenomena of vegetation on the surface of the moon cannot be produced."

In fact, the slight obliquity of the lunar axis keeps the sun there at an almost equal altitude under every latitude. Above the equatorial regions the radiant orb almost invariably occupies the zenith, and hardly passes the limit of the horizon in the polar regions. Therefore, in each region, according to its position, there reigns perpetual spring, summer, autumn, or winter, as in the planet Jupiter, whose axis is also slightly inclined upon its orbit.

The origin of these furrows is a difficult question to solve. They are certainly posterior to the formation of the craters and amphitheatres, for several have crossed them, and broken their circular ramparts. It may be that they are contemporary with the latest geographical epochs, and are only owing to the expansion of natural forces.

In the meantime the projectile had reached the altitude of the 40th degree of lunar latitude at a distance that could not be greater than 800 kilometres. Objects appeared through the telescopes at two leagues only. At this point rose under their feet the Helicon, 505 metres high, and on the left were the mediocre heights, which inclose a small portion of the Sea of Rains under the name of the Gulf of Iris.

The terrestrial atmosphere ought to be 170 times more transparent than it is in order to allow astronomers to make complete observations on the surface of the moon. But in the void the projectile was moving in no fluid lay between the eye of the observer and the object observed. What is more, Barbicane was at a less distance than the most powerful telescopes, even that of Lord Rosse or the one on the Rocky Mountains, could give. It was, therefore, in circumstances highly favourable for solving the great question of the habitability of the moon. Yet the solution of this question escaped him still. He could only distinguish the deserted beds of the immense plains, and, towards the north, arid mountains. No labour betrayed the hand of man. No ruin indicated his passage. No agglomeration of animals indicated that life was developed there, even in an inferior degree. There was no movement anywhere, no appearance of vegetation anywhere. Of the three kingdoms represented on the terrestrial globe, one only was represented on that of the moon—viz., the mineral kingdom.

"So," said Michel Ardan, looking rather put out, "there is nobody after all."

"No," answered Nicholl; "we have seen neither man, animal, nor tree as yet. After all, if the atmosphere has taken refuge at the bottom of cavities, in the interior of the amphitheatres, or even on the opposite face of the moon, we cannot decide the question."

"Besides," added Barbicane, "even for the most piercing sight a man is not visible at a distance of more than four miles. Therefore if there are any Selenites they can see our projectile, but we cannot see them."

About 11 a.m., at the altitude of the 50th parallel, the distance was reduced to 300 miles. On the left rose the capricious outlines of a chain of mountains, outlined in full light. Towards the right, on the contrary, was a large black hole like a vast dark and bottomless well bored in the lunar soil.

That hole was the Black Lake, or Pluto, a deep circle from which the earth could be conveniently studied between the last quarter and the new moon, when the shadows are thrown from west to east.

This black colour is rarely met with on the surface of the satellite. It has, as yet, only been seen in the depths of the circle of Endymion, to the east of the Cold Sea, in the northern hemisphere, and at the bottom of the circle of Grimaldi upon the equator towards the eastern border of the orb.

Pluto is a circular mountain, situated in north lat. 51 deg. and east long. 9 deg.. Its circle is fifty miles long and thirty wide. Barbicane regretted not passing perpendicularly over this vast opening. There was an abyss to see, perhaps some mysterious phenomenon to become acquainted with. But the course of the projectile could not be guided. There was nothing to do but submit. A balloon could not be guided, much less a projectile when you are inside.

About 5 a.m. the northern limit of the Sea of Rains was at last passed. Mounts La Condamine and Fontenelle remained, the one on the left, the other on the right. That part of the disc, starting from the 60th degree, became absolutely mountainous. The telescopes brought it to within one league, an inferior distance to that between the summit of Mont Blanc and the sea level. All this region was bristling with peaks and amphitheatres. Mount Philolaus rose about the 70th degree to a height of 3,700 metres, opening an elliptical crater sixteen leagues long and four wide.

Then the disc, seen from that distance, presented an exceedingly strange aspect. The landscapes were very different to earthly ones, and also very inferior.

The moon having no atmosphere, this absence of vaporous covering had consequences already pointed out. There is no twilight on its surface, night following day and day following night, with the suddenness of a lamp extinguished or lighted in profound darkness. There is no transition from cold to heat: the temperature falls in one instant from boiling water heat to the cold of space.

Another consequence of this absence of air is the following:—Absolute darkness reigns where the sun's rays do not penetrate. What is called diffused light upon the earth, the luminous matter that the air holds in suspension, which creates twilights and dawns, which produces shadows, penumbrae, and all the magic of the chiaro-oscuro, does not exist upon the moon. Hence the harshness of contrasts that only admit two colours, black and white. If a Selenite shades his eyes from the solar rays the sky appears absolutely dark, and the stars shine as in the darkest nights.

The impression produced on Barbicane and his two friends by this strange state of things may well be imagined. They did not know how to use their eyes. They could no longer seize the respective distances in perspective. A lunar landscape, which does not soften the phenomenon of the chiaro-oscuro, could not be painted by a landscape-painter of the earth. It would be nothing but blots of ink upon white paper.

This aspect of things did not alter even when the projectile, then at the altitude of the 80th degree, was only separated from the moon by a distance of fifty miles, not even when, at 5 a.m., it passed at less than twenty-five miles from the mountain of Gioja, a distance which the telescopes reduced to half-a-mile. It seemed as if they could have touched the moon. It appeared impossible that before long the projectile should not knock against it, if only at the North Pole, where the brilliant mountains were clearly outlined against the dark background of the sky. Michel Ardan wanted to open one of the port-lights and jump upon the lunar surface. What was a fall of twelve leagues? He thought nothing of that. It would, however, have been a useless attempt, for if the projectile was not going to reach any point on the satellite, Michel would have been hurled along by its movement, and not have reached it either.

At that moment, 6 a.m., the lunar pole appeared. Only half the disc, brilliantly lighted, appeared to the travellers, whilst the other half disappeared in the darkness. The projectile suddenly passed the line of demarcation between intense light and absolute darkness, and was suddenly plunged into the profoundest night.



CHAPTER XIV.

A NIGHT OF THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FOUR HOURS AND A HALF.

At the moment this phenomenon took place the projectile was grazing the moon's North Pole, at less that twenty-five miles' distance. A few seconds had, therefore, sufficed to plunge it into the absolute darkness of space. The transition had taken place so rapidly, without gradations of light or attenuation of the luminous undulations, that the orb seemed to have been blown out by a powerful gust.

"The moon has melted, disappeared!" cried Michel Ardan, wonder-stricken.

In fact, no ray of light or shade had appeared on the disc, formerly so brilliant. The obscurity was complete, and rendered deeper still by the shining of the stars. It was the darkness of lunar night, which lasts 354 hours and a half on each point of the disc—a long night, the result of the equality of the movements of translation and rotation of the moon, the one upon herself, the other round the earth. The projectile in the satellite's cone of shadow was no longer under the action of the solar rays.

In the interior darkness was, therefore, complete. The travellers could no longer see one another. Hence came the necessity to lighten this darkness. However desirous Barbicane might be to economise the gas, of which he had so small a reserve, he was obliged to have recourse to it for artificial light—an expensive brilliancy which the sun then refused.

"The devil take the radiant orb!" cried Michel Ardan; "he is going to force us to spend our gas instead of giving us his rays for nothing."

"We must not accuse the sun," said Nicholl. "It is not his fault, it is the moon's fault for coming and putting herself like a screen between us and him."

"It's the sun!" said Michel again.

"It's the moon!" retorted Nicholl.

An idle dispute began, which Barbicane put an end to by saying—

"My friends, it is neither the fault of the sun nor the moon. It is the projectile's fault for deviating from its course instead of rigorously following it. Or, to be juster still, it is the fault of that unfortunate asteroid which so deplorably altered our first direction."

"Good!" answered Michel Ardan; "as that business is settled let us have our breakfast. After a night entirely passed in making observations, we want something to set us to rights a little."

This proposition met with no contradiction. Michel prepared the repast in a few minutes. But they ate for the sake of eating. They drank without toasts or hurrahs. The bold travellers, borne away into the darkness of space without their accustomed escort of rays, felt a vague uneasiness invade their hearts. The "farouche" darkness, so dear to the pen of Victor Hugo, surrounded them on all sides.

In the meantime they talked about this interminable night, 354 hours, or nearly 15 days, long, which physical laws have imposed upon the inhabitants of the moon. Barbicane gave his friends some explanation of the causes and consequences of this curious phenomenon.

"Curious it certainly is," said he, "for if each hemisphere of the moon is deprived of solar light for fifteen days, the one over which we are moving at this moment does not even enjoy, during its long night, a sight of the brilliantly-lighted earth. In a word, there is no moon, applying that qualification to our spheroid, except for one side of the disc. Now, if it was the same upon earth—if, for example, Europe never saw the moon, and she was only visible at the antipodes—you can figure to yourselves the astonishment of a European on arriving in Australia."

"They would make the voyage for nothing but to go and see the moon," answered Michel.

"Well," resumed Barbicane, "that astonishment is reserved to the Selenite who inhabits the opposite side of the moon to the earth, a side for ever invisible to our fellow-beings of the terrestrial globe."

"And which we should have seen," added Nicholl, "if we had arrived here at the epoch when the moon is new—that is to say, a fortnight later."

"To make amends," resumed Barbicane, "an inhabitant of the visible face is singularly favoured by Nature to the detriment on the invisible face. The latter, as you see, has dark nights of 354 hours long, without a ray of light to penetrate the obscurity. The other, on the contrary, when the sun, which has lighted him for a fortnight, sets under the horizon, sees on the opposite horizon a splendid orb rise. It is the earth, thirteen times larger than that moon which we know—the earth, which is developed to a diameter of two degrees, and which sheds a light thirteen times greater, which no atmosphere qualifies; the earth, which only disappears when the sun reappears."

"A fine sentence," said Michel Ardan; "rather academical perhaps."

"It follows," resumed Barbicane, nowise put out, "that the visible face of the disc must be very agreeable to inhabit, as it is always lighted by the sun or the moon."

"But," said Nicholl, "this advantage must be quite compensated by the unbearable heat which this light must cause."

"This inconvenience is the same under two faces, for the light reflected by the earth is evidently deprived of heat. However, this invisible face is still more deprived of heat than the visible face. I say that for you, Nicholl; Michel would probably not understand."

"Thank you," said Michel.

"In fact," resumed Barbicane, "when the invisible face receives the solar light and heat the moon is new—that is to say, that she is in conjunction, that she is situated between the sun and the earth. She is then, on account of the situation which she occupies in opposition when she is full, nearer the sun by the double of her distance from the earth. Now this distance may be estimated at the two-hundredth part of that which separates the sun and the earth; or, in round numbers, at two hundred thousand leagues. Therefore this visible face is nearer the sun by two hundred thousand leagues when it receives his rays."

"Quite right," replied Nicholl.

"Whilst—" resumed Barbicane.

"Allow me," said Michel, interrupting his grave companion.

"What do you want?"

"I want to go on with the explanation."

"Why?"

"To prove that I have understood."

"Go on, then," said Barbicane, smiling.

"Whilst," said Michel, imitating the tone and gestures of President Barbicane, "when the visible face of the moon is lighted by the sun the moon is full—that is to say, situated with regard to the earth the opposite to the sun. The distance which separates it from the radiant orb is then increased in round numbers by 200,000 leagues, and the heat which it receives must be rather less."

"Well done!" exclaimed Barbicane. "Do you know, Michel, for an artist you are intelligent."

"Yes," answered Michel carelessly, "we are all intelligent on the Boulevard des Italiens."

Barbicane shook hands gravely with his amiable companion, and went on enumerating the few advantages reserved to the inhabitants of the visible face.

Amongst others he quoted the observations of the sun's eclipses, which can only be seen from one side of the lunar disc, because the moon must be in opposition before they can take place. These eclipses, caused by the interposition of the earth between the sun and the moon, may last two hours, during which, on account of the rays refracted by its atmosphere, the terrestrial globe can only appear like a black spot upon the sun.

"Then," said Nicholl, "the invisible hemisphere is very ill-treated by Nature."

"Yes," answered Barbicane, "but not the whole of it. By a certain movement of liberation, a sort of balancing on its centre, the moon presents more than the half of her disc to the earth. She is like a pendulum, the centre of gravity of which is towards the terrestrial globe, and which oscillates regularly. Whence comes that oscillation? Because her movement of rotation on her axis is animated with uniform velocity, whilst her movement of translation, following an elliptical orb round the earth, is not. At the perigee the velocity of translation is greater, and the moon shows a certain portion of her western border. At her apogee the velocity of rotation is greater, and a morsel of her eastern border appears. It is a strip of about eight degrees, which appears sometimes on the west, sometimes on the east. The result is, therefore, that of a thousand parts the moon shows five hundred and sixty-nine."

"No matter," answered Michel; "if we ever become Selenites, we will inhabit the visible face. I like light."

"Unless," replied Nicholl, "the atmosphere should be condensed on the other side, as certain astronomers pretend."

"That is a consideration," answered Michel simply.

In the meantime breakfast was concluded, and the observers resumed their posts. They tried to see through the dark port-light by putting out all light in the projectile. But not one luminous atom penetrated the obscurity.

One inexplicable fact preoccupied Barbicane. How was it that though the projectile had been so near the moon, within a distance of twenty-five miles, it had not fallen upon her? If its speed had been enormous, he would have understood why it had not fallen. But with a relatively slight speed the resistance to lunar attraction could not be explained. Was the projectile under the influence of some strange force? Did some body maintain it in the ether? It was henceforth evident that it would not touch any point upon the moon. Where was it going? Was it going farther away from or nearer to the disc? Was it carried along in the gloom across infinitude? How were they to know, how calculate in the dark? All these questions made Barbicane anxious, but he could not solve them.

In fact, the invisible orb was there, perhaps, at a distance of some leagues only, but neither his companions nor he could any longer see it. If any noise was made on its surface they could not hear it. The air, that vehicle of transmission, was wanting to convey to them the groans of that moon which the Arabian legends make "a man already half-granite, but still palpitating."

It will be agreed that it was enough to exasperate the most patient observers. It was precisely the unknown hemisphere that was hidden from their eyes. That face which a fortnight sooner or a fortnight later had been, or would be, splendidly lighted up by the solar rays, was then lost in absolute darkness. Where would the projectile be in another fortnight? Where would the hazards of attraction have taken it? Who could say?

It is generally admitted that the invisible hemisphere of the moon is, by its constitution, absolutely similar to the visible hemisphere. One-seventh of it is seen in those movements of libration Barbicane spoke of. Now upon the surface seen there were only plains and mountains, amphitheatres and craters, like those on the maps. They could there imagine the same arid and dead nature. And yet, supposing the atmosphere to have taken refuge upon that face? Suppose that with the air water had given life to these regenerated continents? Suppose that vegetation still persists there? Suppose that animals people these continents and seas? Suppose that man still lives under those conditions of habitability? How many questions there were it would have been interesting to solve! What solutions might have been drawn from the contemplation of that hemisphere! What delight it would have been to glance at that world which no human eye has seen!

The disappointment of the travellers in the midst of this darkness may be imagined. All observation of the lunar disc was prevented. The constellations alone were visible, and it must be acknowledged that no astronomers, neither Faye, Chacornac, nor the Secchi, had ever been in such favourable conditions to observe them.

In fact, nothing could equal the splendour of this starry world, bathed in limpid ether. Diamonds set in the celestial vault threw out superb flames. One look could take in the firmament from the Southern Cross to the North Star, those two constellations which will in 12,000 years, on account of the succession of equinoxes, resign their roles of polar stars, the one to Canopus in the southern hemisphere, the other to Wega in the northern. Imagination lost itself in this sublime infinitude, amidst which the projectile was moving like a new star created by the hand of man. From natural causes these constellations shone with a soft lustre; they did not twinkle because there was no atmosphere to intervene with its strata unequally dense, and of different degrees of humidity, which causes this scintillation.

The travellers long watched the constellated firmament, upon which the vast screen of the moon made an enormous black hole. But a painful sensation at length drew them from their contemplation. This was an intense cold, which soon covered the glasses of the port-lights with a thick coating of ice. The sun no longer warmed the projectile with his rays, and it gradually lost the heat stored up in its walls. This heat was by radiation rapidly evaporated into space, and a considerable lowering of the temperature was the result. The interior humidity was changed into ice by contact with the window-panes, and prevented all observation.

Nicholl, consulting the thermometer, said that it had fallen to 17 deg. (centigrade) below zero (1 deg. Fahr). Therefore, notwithstanding every reason for being economical, Barbicane was obliged to seek heat as well as light from gas. The low temperature of the bullet was no longer bearable. Its occupants would have been frozen to death.

"We will not complain about the monotony of the journey," said Michel Ardan. "What variety we have had, in temperature at all events! At times we have been blinded with light, and saturated with heat like the Indians of the Pampas! Now we are plunged into profound darkness amidst boreal cold, like the Esquimaux of the pole! No, indeed! We have no right to complain, and Nature has done many things in our honour!"

"But," asked Nicholl, "what is the exterior temperature?"

"Precisely that of planetary space," answered Barbicane.

"Then," resumed Michel Ardan, "would not this be an opportunity for making that experiment we could not attempt when we were bathed in the solar rays?"

"Now or never," answered Barbicane, "for we are usefully situated in order to verify the temperature of space, and see whether the calculations of Fourier or Pouillet are correct."

"Any way it is cold enough," said Michel. "Look at the interior humidity condensing on the port-lights. If this fall continues the vapour of our respiration will fall around us in snow."

"Let us get a thermometer," said Barbicane.

It will be readily seen that an ordinary thermometer would have given no result under the circumstances in which it was going to be exposed. The mercury would have frozen in its cup, for it does not keep liquid below 44 deg. below zero. But Barbicane had provided himself with a spirit thermometer, on the Walferdin system, which gives the minima of excessively low temperature.

Before beginning the experiment this instrument was compared with an ordinary thermometer, and Barbicane prepared to employ it.

"How shall we manage it?" asked Nicholl.

"Nothing is easier," answered Michel Ardan, who was never at a loss. "Open the port-light rapidly, throw out the instrument; it will follow the projectile with exemplary docility; a quarter of an hour after take it in."

"With your hand?" asked Barbicane.

"With my hand," answered Michel.

"Well, then, my friend, do not try it," said Barbicane, "for the hand you draw back will be only a stump, frozen and deformed by the frightful cold."

"Really?"

"You would feel the sensation of a terrible burn, like one made with a red-hot iron, for the same thing happens when heat is brutally abstracted from our body as when it is inserted. Besides, I am not sure that objects thrown out still follow us."

"Why?" said Nicholl.

"Because if we are passing through any atmosphere, however slightly dense, these objects will be delayed. Now the darkness prevents us verifying whether they still float around us. Therefore, in order not to risk our thermometer, we will tie something to it, and so easily pull it back into the interior."

Barbicane's advice was followed. Nicholl threw the instrument out of the rapidly-opened port-light, holding it by a very short cord, so that it could be rapidly drawn in. The window was only open one second, and yet that one second was enough to allow the interior of the projectile to become frightfully cold.

"Mille diables!" cried Michel Ardan, "it is cold enough here to freeze white bears!"

Barbicane let half-an-hour go by, more than sufficient time to allow the instrument to descend to the level of the temperature of space. The thermometer was then rapidly drawn in.

Barbicane calculated the quantity of mercury spilt into the little phial soldered to the lower part of the instrument, and said—

"One hundred and forty degrees centigrade below zero!" (218 deg. Fahr.)

M. Pouillet was right, not Fourier. Such was the frightful temperature of sidereal space! Such perhaps that of the lunar continents when the orb of night loses by radiation all the heat which she absorbs during the fifteen days of sunshine.



CHAPTER XV.

HYPERBOLA OR PARABOLA.

Our readers will probably be astonished that Barbicane and his companions were so little occupied with the future in store for them in their metal prison, carried along in the infinitude of ether. Instead of asking themselves where they were going, they lost their time in making experiments, just as if they had been comfortably installed in their own studies.

It might be answered that men so strong-minded were above such considerations, that such little things did not make them uneasy, and that they had something else to do than to think about their future.

The truth is that they were not masters of their projectile—that they could neither stop it nor alter its direction. A seaman can direct the head of his ship as he pleases; an aeronaut can give his balloon vertical movement. They, on the contrary, had no authority over their vehicle. No manoeuvre was possible to them. Hence their not troubling themselves, or "let things go" state of mind.

Where were they at that moment, 8 a.m. during that day called upon earth the sixth of December? Certainly in the neighbourhood of the moon, and even near enough for her to appear like a vast black screen upon the firmament. As to the distance which separated them, it was impossible to estimate it. The projectile, kept up by inexplicable forces, has grazed the north pole of the satellite at less than twenty-five miles' distance. But had that distance increased or diminished since they had been in the cone of shadow? There was no landmark by which to estimate either the direction or the velocity of the projectile. Perhaps it was going rapidly away from the disc and would soon leave the pure shadow. Perhaps, on the contrary, it was approaching it, and would before long strike against some elevated peak in the invisible atmosphere, which would have terminated the journey, doubtless to the detriment of the travellers.

A discussion began upon this subject, and Michel Ardan, always rich in explanations, gave out the opinion that the bullet, restrained by lunar attraction, would end by falling on the moon like an aerolite on to the surface of the terrestrial globe.

"In the first place," answered Barbicane, "all aerolites do not fall upon the surface of the earth; only a small proportion do so. Therefore, if we are aerolites it does not necessarily follow that we shall fall upon the moon."

"Still," answered Michel, "if we get near enough—"

"Error," replied Barbicane. "Have you not seen shooting stars by thousands in the sky at certain epochs?"

"Yes."

"Well, those stars, or rather corpuscles, only shine by rubbing against the atmospheric strata. Now, if they pass through the atmosphere, they pass at less than 16 miles from our globe, and yet they rarely fall. It is the same with our projectile. It may approach very near the moon, and yet not fall upon it."

"But then," asked Michel, "I am curious to know how our vehicle would behave in space."

"I only see two hypotheses," answered Barbicane, after some minutes' reflection.

"What are they?"

"The projectile has the choice between two mathematical curves, and it will follow the one or the other according to the velocity with which it is animated, and which I cannot now estimate."

"Yes, it will either describe a parabola or an hyperbola."

"Yes," answered Barbicane, "with some speed it will describe a parabola, and with greater speed an hyperbola."

"I like those grand words!" exclaimed Michel Ardan. "I know at once what you mean. And what is your parabola, if you please?"

"My friend," answered the captain, "a parabola is a conic section arising from cutting a cone by a plane parallel to one of its sides."

"Oh!" said Michel in a satisfied tone.

"It is about the same trajectory that the bomb of a howitzer describes."

"Just so. And an hyperbola?" asked Michel.

"It is a curve formed by a section of a cone when the cutting plane makes a greater angle with the base than the side of the cone makes."

"Is it possible?" exclaimed Michel Ardan in the most serious tone, as if he had been informed of a grave event. "Then remember this, Captain Nicholl, what I like in your definition of the hyperbola—I was going to say of the hyperhumbug—is that it is still less easy to understand than the word you pretend to define."

Nicholl and Barbicane paid no attention to Michel Ardan's jokes. They had launched into a scientific discussion. They were eager about what curve the projectile would take. One was for the hyperbola, the other for the parabola. They gave each other reasons bristling with x's. Their arguments were presented in a language which made Michel Ardan jump. The discussion was lively, and neither of the adversaries would sacrifice his curve of predilection.

This scientific dispute was prolonged until Michel Ardan became impatient, and said—

"I say, Messrs. Cosine, do leave off throwing your hyperbolas and parabolas at one's head. I want to know the only interesting thing about the business. We shall follow one or other of your curves. Very well. But where will they take us to?"

"Nowhere," answered Nicholl.

"How nowhere?"

"Evidently they are unfinished curves, prolonged indefinitely!"

"Ah, savants! What does it matter about hyperbola or parabola if they both carry us indefinitely into space?"

Barbicane and Nicholl could not help laughing. They cared for art for its own sake. Never had more useless question been discussed at a more inopportune moment. The fatal truth was that the projectile, whether hyperbolically or parabolically carried along, would never strike against either the earth or the moon.

What would become of these bold travellers in the most immediate future? If they did not die of hunger or thirst, they would in a few days, when gas failed them, die for want of air, if the cold had not killed them first!

Still, although it was so important to economise gas, the excessive lowness of the surrounding temperature forced them to consume a certain quantity. They could not do without either its light or heat. Happily the caloric developed by the Reiset and Regnault apparatus slightly elevated the temperature of the projectile, and without spending much they could raise it to a bearable degree.

In the meantime observation through the port-lights had become very difficult. The steam inside the bullet condensed upon the panes and froze immediately. They were obliged to destroy the opacity of the glass by constant rubbing. However, they could record several phenomena of the highest interest.

In fact, if the invisible disc had any atmosphere, the shooting stars would be seen passing through it. If the projectile itself passed through the fluid strata, might it not hear some noise echoed—a storm, for instance, an avalanche, or a volcano in activity? Should they not see the intense fulgurations of a burning mountain? Such facts, carefully recorded, would have singularly elucidated the obscure question of the lunar constitution. Thus Barbicane and Nicholl, standing like astronomers at their port-lights, watched with scrupulous patience.

But until then the disc remained mute and dark. It did not answer the multifarious interrogations of these ardent minds.

This provoked from Michel a reflection that seemed correct enough.

"If ever we recommence our journey, we shall do well to choose the epoch when the moon is new."

"True," answered Nicholl, "that circumstance would have been more favourable. I agree that the moon, bathed in sunlight, would not be visible during the passage, but on the other hand the earth would be full. And if we are dragged round the moon like we are now, we should at least have the advantage of seeing the invisible disc magnificently lighted up."

"Well said, Nicholl," replied Michel Ardan. "What do you think about it, Barbicane?"

"I think this," answered the grave president: "if ever we recommence this journey, we shall start at the same epoch, and under the same circumstances. Suppose we had reached our goal, would it not have been better to find the continents in full daylight instead of dark night? Would not our first installation have been made under better circumstances? Yes, evidently. As to the invisible side, we could have visited that in our exploring expeditions on the lunar globe. So, therefore, the time of the full moon was well chosen. But we ought to have reached our goal, and in order to have reached it we ought not to have deviated from our road."

"There is no answer to make to that," said Michel Ardan. "Yet we have passed a fine opportunity for seeing the moon! Who knows whether the inhabitants of the other planets are not more advanced than the savants of the earth on the subject of their satellites?"

The following answer might easily have been given to Michel Ardan's remark:—Yes, other satellites, on account of their greater proximity, have made the study of them easier. The inhabitants of Saturn, Jupiter, and Uranus, if they exist, have been able to establish communication with their moons much more easily. The four satellites of Jupiter gravitate at a distance of 108,260 leagues, 172,200 leagues, 274,700 leagues, and 480,130 leagues. But these distances are reckoned from the centre of the planet, and by taking away the radius, which is 17,000 to 18,000 leagues, it will be seen that the first satellite is at a much less distance from the surface of Jupiter than the moon is from the centre of the earth. Of the eight moons of Saturn, four are near. Diana is 84,600 leagues off; Thetys, 62,966 leagues; Enceladus, 48,191 leagues; and lastly, Mimas is at an average distance of 34,500 leagues only. Of the eighteen satellites of Uranus, the first, Ariel, is only 51,520 leagues from the planet.

Therefore, upon the surface of those three stars, an experiment analogous to that of President Barbicane would have presented less difficulties. If, therefore, their inhabitants have attempted the enterprise, they have, perhaps, acquainted themselves with the constitution of the half of the disc which their satellite hides eternally from their eyes. But if they have never left their planet, they do not know more about them than the astronomers of the earth.

In the meantime the bullet was describing in the darkness that incalculable trajectory which no landmark allowed them to find out. Was its direction altered either under the influence of lunar attraction or under the action of some unknown orb? Barbicane could not tell. But a change had taken place in the relative position of the vehicle, and Barbicane became aware of it about 4 a.m.

The change consisted in this, that the bottom of the projectile was turned towards the surface of the moon, and kept itself perpendicular with its axis. The attraction or gravitation had caused this modification. The heaviest part of the bullet inclined towards the invisible disc exactly as if it had fallen towards it.

Was it falling then? Were the travellers at last about to reach their desired goal? No. And the observation of one landmark, inexplicable in itself, demonstrated to Barbicane that his projectile was not nearing the moon, and that it was following an almost concentric curve.

This was a flash of light which Nicholl signalised all at once on the limit of the horizon formed by the black disc. This point could not be mistaken for a star. It was a reddish flame, which grew gradually larger—an incontestable proof that the projectile was getting nearer it, and not falling normally upon the surface of the satellite.

"A volcano! It is a volcano in activity!" exclaimed Nicholl—"an eruption of the interior fires of the moon. That world, then, is not quite extinguished."

"Yes, an eruption!" answered Barbicane, who studied the phenomenon carefully through his night-glass. "What should it be if not a volcano?"

"But then," said Michel Ardan, "air is necessary to feed that combustion, therefore there is some atmosphere on that part of the moon."

"Perhaps so," answered Barbicane, "but not necessarily. A volcano, by the decomposition of certain matters, can furnish itself with oxygen, and so throw up flames into the void. It seems to me, too, that that deflagration has the intensity and brilliancy of objects the combustion of which is produced in pure oxygen. We must not be in a hurry to affirm the existence of a lunar atmosphere."

The burning mountain was situated at the 45th degree of south latitude on the invisible part of the disc. But to the great disappointment of Barbicane the curve that the projectile described dragged it away from the point signalised by the eruption, therefore he could not exactly determine its nature. Half-an-hour after it had first been seen this luminous point disappeared on the horizon. Still the authentication of this phenomenon was a considerable fact in selenographic studies. It proved that all heat had not yet disappeared from the interior of this globe, and where heat exists, who may affirm that the vegetable kingdom, or even the animal kingdom itself, has not until now resisted the destructive influences? The existence of this volcano in eruption, indisputably established by earthly savants, was favourable to the theory of the habitability of the moon.

Barbicane became absorbed in reflection. He forgot himself in a mute reverie, filled with the mysterious destinies of the lunar world. He was trying to connect the facts observed up till then, when a fresh incident recalled him suddenly to the reality.

This incident was more than a cosmic phenomenon; it was a threatening danger, the consequences of which might be disastrous.

Suddenly in the midst of the ether, in the profound darkness, an enormous mass had appeared. It was like a moon, but a burning moon of almost unbearable brilliancy, outlined as it was on the total obscurity of space. This mass, of a circular form, threw such light that it filled the projectile. The faces of Barbicane, Nicholl, and Michel Ardan, bathed in its white waves, looked spectral, livid, blafard, like the appearance produced by the artificial light of alcohol impregnated with salt.

"The devil!" cried Michel Ardan. "How hideous we are! Whatever is that wretched moon?"

"It is a bolis," answered Barbicane.

"A bolis, on fire, in the void?"

"Yes."

This globe of fire was indeed a bolis. Barbicane was not mistaken. But if these cosmic meteors, seen from the earth, present an inferior light to that of the moon, here, in the dark ether, they shone magnificently. These wandering bodies carry in themselves the principle of their own incandescence. The surrounding air is not necessary to the deflagration. And, indeed, if certain of these bodies pass through our atmosphere at two or three leagues from the earth, others describe their trajectory at a distance the atmosphere cannot reach. Some of these meteors are from one to two miles wide, and move at a speed of forty miles a second, following an inverse direction from the movement of the earth.

This shooting star suddenly appeared in the darkness at a distance of at least 100 leagues, and measured, according to Barbicane's estimate, a diameter of 2,000 metres. It moved with the speed of about thirty leagues a minute. It cut across the route of the projectile, and would reach it in a few minutes. As it approached it grew larger in an enormous proportion.

If possible, let the situation of the travellers be imagined! It is impossible to describe it. In spite of their courage, their sang-froid, their carelessness of danger, they were mute, motionless, with stiffened limbs, a prey to fearful terror. Their projectile, the course of which they could not alter, was running straight on to this burning mass, more intense than the open mouth of a furnace. They seemed to be rushing towards an abyss of fire.

Barbicane seized the hands of his two companions, and all three looked through their half-closed eyelids at the red-hot asteroid. If they still thought at all, they must have given themselves up as lost!

Two minutes after the sudden appearance of the bolis, two centuries of agony, the projectile seemed about to strike against it, when the ball of fire burst like a bomb, but without making any noise in the void, where sound, which is only the agitation of the strata of air, could not be made.

Nicholl uttered a cry. His companions and he rushed to the port-lights.

What a spectacle! What pen could describe it, what palette would be rich enough in colours to reproduce its magnificence?

It was like the opening of a crater, or the spreading of an immense fire. Thousands of luminous fragments lit up space with their fires. Every size, colour, and shade were there. There were yellow, red, green, grey, a crown of multi-coloured fireworks. There only remained of the enormous and terrible globe pieces carried in all directions, each an asteroid in its turn, some shining like swords, some surrounded by white vapour, others leaving behind them a trail of cosmic dust.

These incandescent blocks crossed each other, knocked against each other, and were scattered into smaller fragments, of which some struck the projectile. Its left window was even cracked by the violent shock. It seemed to be floating in a shower of bullets, of which the least could annihilate it in an instant.

The light which saturated the ether was of incomparable intensity, for these asteroids dispersed it in every direction. At a certain moment it was so bright that Michel dragged Barbicane and Nicholl to the window, exclaiming—

"The invisible moon is at last visible!"

And all three, across the illumination, saw for a few seconds that mysterious disc which the eye of man perceived for the first time.

What did they distinguish across that distance which they could not estimate? Long bands across the disc, veritable clouds formed in a very restricted atmospheric medium, from which emerged not only all the mountains, but every relief of middling importance, amphitheatres, yawning craters, such as exist on the visible face. Then immense tracts, no longer arid plains, but veritable seas, oceans which reflected in their liquid mirror all the dazzling magic of the fires of space. Lastly, on the surface of the continents, vast dark masses, such as immense forests would resemble under the rapid illumination of a flash of lightning.

Was it an illusion, an error of the eyes, an optical deception? Could they give a scientific affirmation to that observation so superficially obtained? Dared they pronounce upon the question of its habitability after so slight a glimpse of the invisible disc?

By degrees the fulgurations of space gradually died out, its accidental brilliancy lessened, the asteroids fled away by their different trajectories, and went out in the distance. The ether resumed its habitual darkness; the stars, for one moment eclipsed, shone in the firmament, and the disc, of which scarcely a glimpse had been caught, was lost in the impenetrable night.



CHAPTER XVI.

THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE.

The projectile had just escaped a terrible danger, a danger quite unforeseen. Who would have imagined such a meeting of asteroids? These wandering bodies might prove serious perils to the travellers. They were to them like so many rocks in the sea of ether, which, less fortunate than navigators, they could not avoid. But did these adventurers of space complain? No, as Nature had given them the splendid spectacle of a cosmic meteor shining by formidable expansion, as this incomparable display of fireworks, which no Ruggieri could imitate, had lighted for a few seconds the invisible nimbus of the moon. During that rapid peep, continents, seas, and forests had appeared to them. Then the atmosphere did give there its life-giving particles? Questions still not solved, eternally asked by American curiosity.

It was then 3.30 p.m. The bullet was still describing its curve round the moon. Had its route again been modified by the meteor? It was to be feared. The projectile ought, however to describe a curve imperturbably determined by the laws of mechanics. Barbicane inclined to the opinion that this curve would be a parabola and not an hyperbola. However, if the parabola was admitted, the bullet ought soon to come out of the cone of shadow thrown into the space on the opposite side to the sun. This cone, in fact, is very narrow, the angular diameter of the moon is so small compared to the diameter of the orb of day. Until now the projectile had moved in profound darkness. Whatever its speed had been—and it could not have been slight—its period of occultation continued. That fact was evident, but perhaps that would not have been the case in a rigidly parabolical course. This was a fresh problem which tormented Barbicane's brain, veritably imprisoned as it was in a web of the unknown which he could not disentangle.

Neither of the travellers thought of taking a minute's rest. Each watched for some unexpected incident which should throw a new light on their uranographic studies. About five o'clock Michel distributed to them, by way of dinner, some morsels of bread and cold meat, which were rapidly absorbed, whilst no one thought of leaving the port-light, the panes of which were becoming incrusted under the condensation of vapour.

About 5.45 p.m., Nicholl, armed with his telescope, signalised upon the southern border of the moon, and in the direction followed by the projectile, a few brilliant points outlined against the dark screen of the sky. They looked like a succession of sharp peaks with profiles in a tremulous line. They were rather brilliant. The terminal line of the moon looks the same when she is in one of her octants.

They could not be mistaken. There was no longer any question of a simple meteor, of which that luminous line had neither the colour nor the mobility, nor of a volcano in eruption. Barbicane did not hesitate to declare what it was.

"The sun!" he exclaimed.

"What! the sun!" answered Nicholl and Michel Ardan.

"Yes, my friends, it is the radiant orb itself, lighting up the summit of the mountains situated on the southern border of the moon. We are evidently approaching the South Pole!"

"After having passed the North Pole," answered Michel. "Then we have been all round our satellite."

"Yes, friend Michel."

"Then we have no more hyperbolas, no more parabolas, no more open curves to fear!"

"No, but a closed curve."

"Which is called—"

"An ellipsis. Instead of being lost in the interplanetary spaces it is possible that the projectile will describe an elliptical orbit round the moon."

"Really!"

"And that it will become its satellite."

"Moon of the moon," exclaimed Michel Ardan.

"Only I must tell you, my worthy friend, that we are none the less lost men on that account!"

"No, but in another and much pleasanter way!" answered the careless Frenchman, with his most amiable smile.

President Barbicane was right. By describing this elliptical orbit the projectile was going to gravitate eternally round the moon like a sub-satellite. It was a new star added to the solar world, a microcosm peopled by three inhabitants, whom want of air would kill before long. Barbicane, therefore, could not rejoice at the position imposed on the bullet by the double influence of the centripetal and centrifugal forces. His companions and he were again going to see the visible face of the disc. Perhaps their existence would last long enough for them to perceive for the last time the full earth superbly lighted up by the rays of the sun! Perhaps they might throw a last adieu to the globe they were never more to see again! Then their projectile would be nothing but an extinct mass, dead like those inert asteroids which circulate in the ether. A single consolation remained to them: it was that of seeing the darkness and returning to light, it was that of again entering the zones bathed by solar irradiation!

In the meantime the mountains recognised by Barbicane stood out more and more from the dark mass. They were Mounts Doerfel and Leibnitz, which stand on the southern circumpolar region of the moon.

All the mountains of the visible hemisphere have been measured with perfect exactitude. This perfection will, no doubt, seem astonishing, and yet the hypsometric methods are rigorous. The altitude of the lunar mountains may be no less exactly determined than that of the mountains of the earth.

The method generally employed is that of measuring the shadow thrown by the mountains, whilst taking into account the altitude of the sun at the moment of observation. This method also allows the calculating of the depth of craters and cavities on the moon. Galileo used it, and since Messrs. Boeer and Moedler have employed it with the greatest success.

Another method, called the tangent radii, may also be used for measuring lunar reliefs. It is applied at the moment when the mountains form luminous points on the line of separation between light and darkness which shine on the dark part of the disc. These luminous points are produced by the solar rays above those which determine the limit of the phase. Therefore the measure of the dark interval which the luminous point and the luminous part of the phase leave between them gives exactly the height of the point. But it will be seen that this method can only be applied to the mountains near the line of separation of darkness and light.

A third method consists in measuring the profile of the lunar mountains outlined on the background by means of a micrometer; but it is only applicable to the heights near the border of the orb.

In any case it will be remarked that this measurement of shadows, intervals, or profiles can only be made when the solar rays strike the moon obliquely in relation to the observer. When they strike her directly—in a word, when she is full—all shadow is imperiously banished from her disc, and observation is no longer possible.

Galileo, after recognising the existence of the lunar mountains, was the first to employ the method of calculating their heights by the shadows they throw. He attributed to them, as it has already been shown, an average of 9,000 yards. Hevelius singularly reduced these figures, which Riccioli, on the contrary, doubled. All these measures were exaggerated. Herschel, with his more perfect instruments, approached nearer the hypsometric truth. But it must be finally sought in the accounts of modern observers.

Messrs. Boeer and Moedler, the most perfect selenographers in the whole world, have measured 1,095 lunar mountains. It results from their calculations that 6 of these mountains rise above 5,800 metres, and 22 above 4,800. The highest summit of the moon measures 7,603 metres; it is, therefore, inferior to those of the earth, of which some are 1,000 yards higher. But one remark must be made. If the respective volumes of the two orbs are compared the lunar mountains are relatively higher than the terrestrial. The lunar ones form 1/70 of the diameter of the moon, and the terrestrial only form 1/140 of the diameter of the earth. For a terrestrial mountain to attain the relative proportions of a lunar mountain, its perpendicular height ought to be 6-1/2 leagues. Now the highest is not four miles.

Thus, then, to proceed by comparison, the chain of the Himalayas counts three peaks higher than the lunar ones, Mount Everest, Kunchinjuga, and Dwalagiri. Mounts Doerfel and Leibnitz, on the moon, are as high as Jewahir in the same chain. Newton, Casatus, Curtius, Short, Tycho, Clavius, Blancanus, Endymion, the principal summits of Caucasus and the Apennines, are higher than Mont Blanc. The mountains equal to Mont Blanc are Moret, Theophylus, and Catharnia; to Mount Rosa, Piccolomini, Werner, and Harpalus; to Mount Cervin, Macrobus, Eratosthenes, Albateque, and Delambre; to the Peak of Teneriffe, Bacon, Cysatus, Philolaus, and the Alps; to Mount Perdu, in the Pyrenees, Roemer and Boguslawski; to Etna, Hercules, Atlas, and Furnerius.

Such are the points of comparison that allow the appreciation of the altitude of lunar mountains. Now the trajectory followed by the projectile dragged it precisely towards that mountainous region of the southern hemisphere where rise the finest specimens of lunar orography.



CHAPTER XVII.

TYCHO.

At 6 p.m. the projectile passed the South Pole at less than thirty miles, a distance equal to that already reached at the North Pole. The elliptical curve was, therefore, being rigorously described.

At that moment the travellers re-entered the beneficent sunshine. They saw once more the stars moving slowly from east to west. The radiant orb was saluted with a triple hurrah. With its light came also its heat, which soon pierced the middle walls. The windows resumed their accustomed transparency. Their "layer of ice" melted as if by enchantment. The gas was immediately extinguished by way of economy. The air apparatus alone was to consume its habitual quantity.

"Ah!" said Nicholl, "sunshine is good! How impatiently after their long nights the Selenites must await the reappearance of the orb of day!"

"Yes," answered Michel Ardan, "imbibing, as it were, the brilliant ether, light and heat, all life is in them."

At that moment the bottom of the projectile moved slightly from the lunar surface in order to describe a rather long elliptical orbit. From that point, if the earth had been full, Barbicane and his friends could have seen it again. But, drowned in the sun's irradiation, it remained absolutely invisible. Another spectacle attracted their eyes, presented by the southern region of the moon, brought by the telescopes to within half-a-mile. They left the port-lights no more, and noted all the details of the strange continent.

Mounts Doerfel and Leibnitz formed two separate groups stretching nearly to the South Pole; the former group extends from the Pole to the 84th parallel on the eastern part of the orb; the second, starting from the eastern border, stretches from the 65th degree of latitude to the Pole.

On their capriciously-formed ridge appeared dazzling sheets of light like those signalised by Father Secchi. With more certainty than the illustrious Roman astronomer, Barbicane was enabled to establish their nature.

"It is snow," cried he.

"Snow?" echoed Nicholl.

"Yes, Nicholl, snow, the surface of which is profoundly frozen. Look how it reflects the luminous rays. Cooled lava would not give so intense a reflection. Therefore there is water and air upon the moon, as little as you like, but the fact can no longer be contested."

No, it could not be, and if ever Barbicane saw the earth again his notes would testify to this fact, important in selenographic observations.

These Mounts Doerfel and Leibnitz arose in the midst of plains of moderate extent, bounded by an indefinite succession of amphitheatres and circular ramparts. These two chains are the only ones which are met with in the region of amphitheatres. Relatively they are not very broken, and only throw out here and there some sharp peaks, the highest of which measures 7,603 metres.

The projectile hung high above all this, and the relief disappeared in the intense brilliancy of the disc.

Then reappeared to the eyes of the travellers that original aspect of the lunar landscapes, raw in tone, without gradation of colours, only white and black, for diffused light was wanting. Still the sight of this desolate world was very curious on account of its very strangeness. They were moving above this chaotic region as if carried along by the breath of a tempest, seeing the summits fly under their feet, looking down the cavities, climbing the ramparts, sounding the mysterious holes. But there was no trace of vegetation, no appearance of cities, nothing but stratifications, lava streams, polished like immense mirrors, which reflect the solar rays with unbearable brilliancy. There was no appearance of a living world, everything of a dead one, where the avalanches rolling from the summit of the mountains rushed noiselessly. They had plenty of movement, but noise was wanting still.

Barbicane established the fact, by reiterated observation, that the reliefs on the borders of the disc, although they had been acted upon by different forces to those of the central region, presented a uniform conformation. There was the same circular aggregation, the same accidents of ground. Still it might be supposed that their arrangements were not completely analogous. In the centre the still malleable crust of the moon suffered the double attraction of the moon and the earth acting in inverse ways according to a radius prolonged from one to the other. On the borders of the disc, on the contrary, the lunar attraction has been, thus to say, perpendicular with the terrestrial attraction. It seems, therefore, that the reliefs on the soil produced under these conditions ought to have taken a different form. Yet they had not, therefore the moon had found in herself alone the principle of her formation and constitution. She owed nothing to foreign influences, which justified the remarkable proposition of Arago's, "No action exterior to the moon has contributed to the production of her relief."

However that may be in its actual condition, this world was the image of death without it being possible to say that life had ever animated it.

Michel Ardan, however, thought he recognised a heap of ruins, to which he drew Barbicane's attention. It was situated in about the 80th parallel and 30 deg. longitude. This heap of stones, pretty regularly made, was in the shape of a vast fortress, overlooking one of those long furrows which served as river-beds in ante-historical times. Not far off rose to a height of 5,646 metres the circular mountain called Short, equal to the Asiatic Caucasus. Michel Ardan, with his habitual ardour, maintained "the evidences" of his fortress. Below he perceived the dismantled ramparts of a town; here the arch of a portico, still intact; there two or three columns lying on their side; farther on a succession of archpieces, which must have supported the conduct of an aqueduct; in another part the sunken pillars of a gigantic bridge run into the thickest part of the furrow. He distinguished all that, but with so much imagination in his eyes, through a telescope so fanciful, that his observation cannot be relied upon. And yet who would affirm, who would dare to say, that the amiable fellow had not really seen what his two companions would not see?

The moments were too precious to be sacrificed to an idle discussion. The Selenite city, whether real or pretended, had disappeared in the distance. The projectile began to get farther away from the lunar disc, and the details of the ground began to be lost in a confused jumble. The reliefs, amphitheatres, craters, and plains alone remained, and still showed their boundary-lines distinctly.

At that moment there stretched to the left one of the finest amphitheatres in lunar orography. It was Newton, which Barbicane easily recognised by referring to the Mappa Selenographica.

Newton is situated in exactly 77 deg. south lat. and 16 deg. east long. It forms a circular crater, the ramparts of which, 7,264 metres high, seemed to be inaccessible.

Barbicane made his companions notice that the height of that mountain above the surrounding plain was far from being equal to the depth of its crater. This enormous hole was beyond all measurement, and made a gloomy abyss, the bottom of which the sun's rays could never reach. There, according to Humboldt, utter darkness reigns, which the light of the sun and the earth could not break. The mythologists would have made it with justice hell's mouth.

"Newton," said Barbicane, "is the most perfect type of the circular mountains, of which the earth possesses no specimen. They prove that the formation of the moon by cooling was due to violent causes, for whilst under the influence of interior fire the reliefs were thrown up to considerable heights, the bottom dropped in, and became lower than the lunar level."

"I do not say no," answered Michel Ardan.

A few minutes after having passed Newton the projectile stood directly over the circular mountain of Moret. It also passed rather high above the summits of Blancanus, and about 7.30 p.m. it reached the amphitheatre of Clavius.

This circle, one of the most remarkable on the disc, is situated in south lat. 58 deg. and east long. 15 deg.. Its height is estimated at 7,091 metres. The travellers at a distance of 200 miles, reduced to two by the telescopes, could admire the arrangement of this vast crater.

"The terrestrial volcanoes," said Barbicane, "are only molehills compared to the volcanoes of the moon. Measuring the ancient craters formed by the first eruptions of Vesuvius and Etna, they are found to be scarcely 6,000 metres wide. In France the circle of the Cantal measures five miles; at Ceylon the circle of the island is forty miles, and is considered the largest on the globe. What are these diameters compared to that of Clavius, which we are over in this moment?"

"What is its width?" asked Nicholl.

"About seventy miles," answered Barbicane. "This amphitheatre is certainly the largest on the moon, but many are fifty miles wide!"