<h2 id="sigil_toc_id_85">CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
<h3 id="sigil_toc_id_86">LUNAR LANDSCAPES.</h3>
<p>At half-past two in the morning, the projectile was over the
thirteenth lunar parallel and at the effective distance of 500 miles,
reduced by the glasses to five. It still seemed impossible, however,
that it could ever touch any part of the disc. Its motive speed,
comparatively so moderate, was inexplicable to President Barbicane.
At that distance from the moon it must have been considerable, to
enable it to bear up against her attraction. Here was a phenomenon
the cause of which escaped them again. Besides, time failed them to
investigate the cause. All lunar relief was defiling under the eyes
of the travellers, and they would not lose a single detail.</p>
<p>Under the glasses the disc appeared at the distance of five miles.
What would an aeronaut, borne to this distance from the earth,
distinguish on its surface? We cannot say, since the greatest
ascension has not been more than 25,000 feet.</p>
<p>This, however, is an exact description of what Barbicane and his
companions saw at this height. Large patches of different colours
appeared on the disc. Selenographers are not agreed upon the nature
of these colours. There are several, and rather vividly marked.
Julius Schmidt pretends that, if the terrestrial oceans were dried
up, a Selenite observer could not distinguish on the globe a greater
diversity of shades between the oceans and the continental plains
than those on the moon present to a terrestrial observer. According
to him, the colour common to the vast plains known by the name of
"seas" is a dark grey mixed with green and brown. Some of the large
craters present the same appearance. Barbicane knew this opinion of
the German selenographer, an opinion shared by Bœer and Moedler.
Observation has proved that right was on their side, and not on that
of some astronomers who admit the existence of only grey on the
moon's surface. In some parts green was very distinct, such as
springs, according to Julius Schmidt, from the seas of Serenity and
Humours. Barbicane also noticed large craters, without any interior
cones, which shed a bluish tint similar to the reflection of a sheet
of steel freshly polished. These colours belonged really to the lunar
disc, and did not result, as some astronomers say, either from the
imperfection in the objective of the glasses or from the
interposition of the terrestrial atmosphere.</p>
<p>Not a doubt existed in Barbicane's mind with regard to it, as he
observed it through space, and so could not commit any optical error.
He considered the establishment of this fact as an acquisition to
science. Now, were these shades of green, belonging to tropical
vegetation, kept up by a low dense atmosphere? He could not yet
say.</p>
<p>Farther on, he noticed a reddish tint, quite defined. The same
shade had before been observed at the bottom of an isolated
enclosure, known by the name of Lichtenburg's circle, which is
situated near the Hercynian mountains, on the borders of the moon;
but they could not tell the nature of it.</p>
<p>They were not more fortunate with regard to another peculiarity of
the disc, for they could not decide upon the cause of it.</p>
<p>Michel Ardan was watching near the president, when he noticed long
white lines, vividly lighted up by the direct rays of the sun. It was
a succession of luminous furrows, very different from the radiation
of Copernicus not long before; they ran parallel with each other.</p>
<p>Michel, with his usual readiness, hastened to exclaim,— "Look
there! cultivated fields!"</p>
<div class="illus"><ANTIMG alt="Illustration: WHAT GIANT OXEN." id="oxen" src="images/oxen.jpg" /></div>
<div class="caption">"WHAT GIANT OXEN."</div>
<p>"Cultivated fields!" replied Nicholl, shrugging his shoulders.</p>
<p>"Ploughed, at all events," retorted Michel Ardan; "but what
labourers those Selenites must be, and what giant oxen they must
harness to their plough to cut such furrows!"</p>
<p>"They are not furrows," said Barbicane; "they are
<i>rifts</i>."</p>
<p>"Rifts? stuff!" replied Michel mildly; "but what do you mean by
'rifts' in the scientific world?"</p>
<p>Barbicane immediately enlightened his companion as to what he knew
about lunar rifts. He knew that they were a kind of furrow found on
every part of the disc which was not mountainous; that these furrows,
generally isolated, measured from 400 to 500 leagues in length; that
their breadth varied from 1000 to 1500 yards, and that their borders
were strictly parallel; but he knew nothing more either of their
formation or their nature.</p>
<p>Barbicane, through his glasses, observed these rifts with great
attention. He noticed that their borders were formed of steep
declivities; they were long parallel ramparts, and with some small
amount of imagination he might have admitted the existence of long
lines of fortifications, raised by Selenite engineers. Of these
different rifts some were perfectly straight, as if cut by a line;
others were slightly curved, though still keeping their borders
parallel; some crossed each other, some cut through craters; here
they wound through ordinary cavities, such as Posidonius or Petavius;
there they wound through the seas, such as the Sea of Serenity.</p>
<p>These natural accidents naturally excited the imaginations of
these terrestrial astronomers. The first observations had not
discovered these rifts. Neither Hevelius, Cassim, La Hire, nor
Herschel seemed to have known them. It was Schroeter who in 1789
first drew attention to them. Others followed who studied them, as
Pastorff, Gruithuysen, Bœer, and Moedler. At this time their number
amounts to seventy; but, if they have been counted, their nature has
not yet been determined; they are certainly not fortifications, any
more than they are the ancient beds of dried-up rivers; for, on one
side, the waters, so slight on the moon's surface, could never have
worn such drains for themselves; and, on the other, they often cross
craters of great elevation.</p>
<p>We must, however, allow that Michel Ardan had "an idea," and that,
without knowing it, he coincided in that respect with Julius
Schmidt.</p>
<p>"Why," said he, "should not these unaccountable appearances be
simply phenomena of vegetation?"</p>
<p>"What do you mean?" asked Barbicane quickly.</p>
<p>"Do not excite yourself, my worthy president," replied Michel;
"might it not be possible that the dark lines forming that bastion
were rows of trees regularly placed?"</p>
<p>"You stick to your vegetation, then?" said Barbicane.</p>
<p>"I like," retorted Michel Ardan, "to explain what you savants
cannot explain; at least my hypothesis has the advantage of
indicating why these rifts disappear, or seem to disappear, at
certain seasons."</p>
<p>"And for what reason?"</p>
<p>"For the reason that the trees become invisible when they lose
their leaves, and visible when they regain them."</p>
<p>"Your explanation is ingenious, my dear companion," replied
Barbicane, "but inadmissible."</p>
<p>"Why?"</p>
<p>"Because, so to speak, there are no seasons on the moon's surface,
and that, consequently, the phenomena of vegetation of which you
speak cannot occur."</p>
<p>Indeed, the slight obliquity of the lunar axis keeps the sun at an
almost equal height in every latitude. Above the equatorial regions
the radiant orb almost invariably occupies the zenith, and does not
pass the limits of the horizon in the polar regions; thus, according
to each region, there reigns a perpetual winter, spring, summer, or
autumn, as in the planet Jupiter, whose axis is but little inclined
upon its orbit.</p>
<div class="illus"><ANTIMG alt="Illustration: HE COULD DISTINGUISH NOTHING BUT DESERT BEDS." id="desert" src="images/desert.jpg" /></div>
<div class="caption">HE COULD DISTINGUISH NOTHING BUT DESERT
BEDS.</div>
<p>What origin do they attribute to these rifts? That is a question
difficult to solve. They are certainly anterior to the formation of
craters and circles, for several have introduced themselves by
breaking through their circular ramparts. Thus it may be that,
contemporary with the latter geological epochs, they are due to the
expansion of natural forces.</p>
<p>But the projectile had now attained the 40° of lunar lat., at a
distance not exceeding 400 miles. Through the glasses objects
appeared to be only four miles distant.</p>
<p>At this point, under their feet, rose Mount Helicon, 1520 feet
high, and round about the left rose moderate elevations, enclosing a
small portion of the "Sea of Rains," under the name of the Gulf of
Iris. The terrestrial atmosphere would have to be one hundred and
seventy times more transparent than it is, to allow astronomers to
make perfect observations on the moon's surface; but in the void in
which the projectile floated no fluid interposed itself between the
eye of the observer and the object observed. And more, Barbicane
found himself carried to a greater distance than the most powerful
telescopes had ever done before, either that of Lord Rosse or that of
the Rocky Mountains. He was, therefore, under extremely favourable
conditions for solving that great question of the habitability of the
moon; but the solution still escaped him; he could distinguish
nothing but desert beds, immense plains, and towards the north, arid
mountains. Not a work betrayed the hand of man; not a ruin marked his
course; not a group of animals was to be seen indicating life, even
in an inferior degree. In no part was there life, in no part was
there an appearance of vegetation. Of the three kingdoms which share
the terrestrial globe between them, one alone was represented on the
lunar and that the mineral.</p>
<p>"Ah, indeed!" said Michel Ardan, a little out of countenance;
"then you see no one?"</p>
<p>"No," answered Nicholl; "up to this time not a man, not an animal,
not a tree! After all, whether the atmosphere has taken refuge at the
bottom of cavities, in the midst of the circles, or even on the
opposite face of the moon, we cannot decide."</p>
<p>"Besides," added Barbicane, "even to the most piercing eye a man
cannot be distinguished farther than three miles and a half off; so
that, if there are any Selenites, they can see our projectile, but we
cannot see them."</p>
<p>Towards four in the morning, at the height of the fiftieth
parallel, the distance was reduced to 300 miles. To the left ran a
line of mountains capriciously shaped, lying in the full light. To
the right, on the contrary, lay a black hollow resembling a vast
well, unfathomable and gloomy, drilled into the lunar soil.</p>
<p>This hole was the "Black Lake;" it was Pluto, a deep circle which
can be conveniently studied from the earth, between the last quarter
and the new moon, when the shadows fall from west to east.</p>
<p>This black colour is rarely met with on the surface of the
satellite. As yet it has only been recognized in the depths of the
circle of Endymion, to the east of the Cold Sea, in the northern
hemisphere, and at the bottom of Grimaldi's circle, on the equator,
towards the eastern border of the orb.</p>
<p>Pluto is an annular mountain, situated in 51° north latitude, and
9° east longitude. Its circuit is forty-seven miles long and
thirty-two broad.</p>
<p>Barbicane regretted that they were not passing directly above this
vast opening. There was an abyss to fathom, perhaps some mysterious
phenomenon to surprise; but the projectile's course could not be
altered. They must rigidly submit. They could not guide a balloon,
still less a projectile, when once enclosed within its walls. Towards
five in the morning the northern limits of the Sea of Rains was at
length passed. The mounts of Condamine and Fontenelle remained—one on
the right, the other on the left. That part of the disc beginning
with 60° was becoming quite mountainous. The glasses brought them to
within two miles, less than that separating the summit of Mont Blanc
from the level of the sea. The whole region was bristling with spikes
and circles. Towards the 60° Philolaus stood predominant at a height
of 5550 feet with its elliptical crater, and seen from this distance,
the disc showed a very fantastical appearance. Landscapes were
presented to the eye under very different conditions from those on
the earth, and also very inferior to them.</p>
<p>The moon having no atmosphere, the consequences arising from the
absence of this gaseous envelope have already been shown. No twilight
on her surface; night following day and day following night with the
suddenness of a lamp which is extinguished or lighted amidst profound
darkness,—no transition from cold to heat, the temperature falling in
an instant from boiling point to the cold of space.</p>
<p>Another consequence of this want of air is that absolute darkness
reigns where the sun's rays do not penetrate. That which on earth is
called diffusion of light, that luminous matter which the air holds
in suspension, which creates the twilight and the daybreak, which
produces the <i>umbræ</i> and the <i>penumbræ</i>, and all the magic
of <i>chiaro-oscuro</i>, does not exist on the moon. Hence the
harshness of contrasts, which only admit of two colours, black and
white. If a Selenite were to shade his eyes from the sun's rays, the
sky would seem absolutely black, and the stars would shine to him as
on the darkest night. Judge of the impression produced on Barbicane
and his three friends by this strange scene! Their eyes were
confused. They could no longer grasp the respective distances of the
different plains. A lunar landscape without the softening of the
phenomena of <i>chiaro-oscuro</i> could not be rendered by an earthly
landscape painter: it would be spots of ink on a white page—nothing
more.</p>
<p>This aspect was not altered even when the projectile, at the
height of 80°, was only separated from the moon by a distance of
fifty miles; nor even when, at five in the morning, it passed at less
than twenty-five miles from the mountain of Gioja, a distance reduced
by the glasses to a quarter of a mile. It seemed as if the moon might
be touched by the hand! It seemed impossible that, before long, the
projectile would not strike her, if only at the north pole, the
brilliant arch of which was so distinctly visible on the black
sky.</p>
<p>Michel Ardan wanted to open one of the scuttles and throw himself
on to the moon's surface! A very useless attempt; for if the
projectile could not attain any point whatever of the satellite,
Michel, carried along by its motion, could not attain it either.</p>
<p>At that moment, at six o'clock, the lunar pole appeared. The disc
only presented to the travellers' gaze one half brilliantly lit up,
whilst the other disappeared in the darkness. Suddenly the projectile
passed the line of demarcation between intense light and absolute
darkness, and was plunged in profound night!</p>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />