Page 101 of 198 CHAPTER XIII. LUNAR LANDSCAPES - All Around The Moon

"Not at all!" cried the Frenchman, still true to his colors; "no subsidence there! A comet simply came too close and left its mark as it flew past."

"Fanciful exclamations, dear friends," observed Barbican; "but I'm not surprised at your excitement. Yonder is the famous _Valley of the Alps_, a standing enigma to all selenographers. How it could have been formed, no one can tell. Even wilder guesses than yours, Ardan, have been hazarded on the subject. All we can state positively at present regarding this wonderful formation, is what I have just recorded in my note-book: the _Valley of the Alps_ is about 5 mile wide and 70 or 80 long: it is remarkably flat and free from _debris_, though the mountains on each side rise like walls to the height of at least 10,000 feet.--Over the whole surface of our Earth I know of no natural phenomenon that can be at all compared with it."

"Another wonder almost in front of us!" cried Ardan. "I see a vast lake black as pitch and round as a crater; it is surrounded by such lofty mountains that their shadows reach clear across, rendering the interior quite invisible!"

"That's _Plato_;" said M'Nicholl; "I know it well; it's the darkest spot on the Moon: many a night I gazed at it from my little observatory in Broad Street, Philadelphia."

"Right, Captain," said Barbican; "the crater _Plato_, is, indeed, generally considered the blackest spot on the Moon, but I am inclined to consider the spots _Grimaldi_ and _Riccioli_ on the extreme eastern edge to be somewhat darker. If you take my glass, Ardan, which is of somewhat greater power than yours, you will distinctly see the bottom of the crater. The reflective power of its plateau probably proceeds from the exceedingly great number of small craters that you can detect there."

"I think I see something like them now," said Ardan. "But I am sorry the Projectile's course will not give us a vertical view."

"Can't be helped!" said Barbican; "we must go where it takes us. The day may come when man can steer the projectile or the balloon in which he is shut up, in any way he pleases, but that day has not come yet!"

Towards five in the morning, the northern limit of _Mare Imbrium_ was finally passed, and _Mare Frigoris_ spread its frost-colored plains far to the right and left. On the east the travellers could easily see the ring-mountain _Condamine_, about 4000 feet high, while a little ahead on the right they could plainly distinguish _Fontenelle_ with an altitude nearly twice as great. _Mare Frigoris_ was soon passed, and the whole lunar surface beneath the travellers, as far as they could see in all directions, now bristled with mountains, crags, and peaks. Indeed, at the 70th parallel the "Seas" or plains seem to have come to an end. The spy-glasses now brought the surface to within about three miles, a distance less than that between the hotel at Chamouni and the summit of Mont Blanc. To the left, they had no difficulty in distinguishing the ramparts of _Philolaus_, about 12,000 feet high, but though the crater had a diameter of nearly thirty miles, the black shadows prevented the slightest sign of its interior from being seen. The Sun was now sinking very low, and the illuminated surface of the Moon was reduced to a narrow rim.

		"The English public, as a mass, takes no interest in a work of art until it is told that the work in question is immoral." Oscar Wilde