by Jules Verne
CHAPTER XIII.
LUNAR LANDSCAPES
At half past two in the morning of December 6th, the travellers crossedthe 30th northern parallel, at a distance from the lunar surface of 625miles, reduced to about 6 by their spy-glasses. Barbican could not yetsee the least probability of their landing at any point of the disc. Thevelocity of the Projectile was decidedly slow, but for that reasonextremely puzzling. Barbican could not account for it. At such aproximity to the Moon, the velocity, one would think, should be verygreat indeed to be able to counteract the lunar attraction. Why did itnot fall? Barbican could not tell; his companions were equally in thedark. Ardan said he gave it up. Besides they had no time to spend ininvestigating it. The lunar panorama was unrolling all its splendorsbeneath them, and they could not bear to lose one of its slightestdetails.
The lunar disc being brought within a distance of about six miles by thespy-glasses, it is a fair question to ask, what _could_ an aeronaut atsuch an elevation from our Earth discover on its surface? At presentthat question can hardly be answered, the most remarkable balloonascensions never having passed an altitude of five miles undercircumstances favorable for observers. Here, however, is an account,carefully transcribed from notes taken on the spot, of what Barbican andhis companions _did_ see from their peculiar post of observation.
Varieties of color, in the first place, appeared here and there upon thedisc. Selenographers are not quite agreed as to the nature of thesecolors. Not that such colors are without variety or too faint to beeasily distinguished. Schmidt of Athens even says that if our oceans onearth were all evaporated, an observer in the Moon would hardly find theseas and continents of our globe even so well outlined as those of theMoon are to the eye of a terrestrial observer. According to him, theshade of color distinguishing those vast plains known as "seas" is adark gray dashed with green and brown,--a color presented also by a fewof the great craters.
This opinion of Schmidt's, shared by Beer and Maedler, Barbican'sobservations now convinced him to be far better founded than that ofcertain astronomers who admit of no color at all being visible on theMoon's surface but gray. In certain spots the greenish tint was quitedecided, particularly in _Mare Serenitatis_ and _Mare Humorum,_ the verylocalities where Schmidt had most noticed it. Barbican also remarkedthat several large craters, of the class that had no interior cones,reflected a kind of bluish tinge, somewhat like that given forth by afreshly polished steel plate. These tints, he now saw enough to convincehim, proceeded really from the lunar surface, and were not due, ascertain astronomers asserted, either to the imperfections of thespy-glasses, or to the interference of the terrestrial atmosphere. Hissingular opportunity for correct observation allowed him to entertain nodoubt whatever on the subject. Hampered by no atmosphere, he was freefrom all liability to optical illusion. Satisfied therefore as to thereality of these tints, he considered such knowledge a positive gain toscience. But that greenish tint--to what was it due? To a dense tropicalvegetation maintained by a low atmosphere, a mile or so in thickness?Possibly. But this was another question that could not be answered atpresent.
Further on he could detect here and there traces of a decidedly ruddytint. Such a shade he knew had been already detected in the _PalusSomnii_, near _Mare Crisium_, and in the circular area of _Lichtenberg_,near the _Hercynian Mountains_, on the eastern edge of the Moon. To whatcause was this tint to be attributed? To the actual color of the surfaceitself? Or to that of the lava covering it here and there? Or to thecolor resulting from the mixture of other colors seen at a distance toogreat to allow of their being distinguished separately? Impossible totell.
Barbican and his companions succeeded no better at a new problem thatsoon engaged their undivided attention. It deserves some detail.
Having passed _Lambert_, being just over _Timocharis_, all wereattentively gazing at the magnificent crater of _Archimedes_ with adiameter of 52 miles across and ramparts more than 5000 feet in height,when Ardan startled his companions by suddenly exclaiming:
"Hello! Cultivated fields as I am a living man!"
"What do you mean by your cultivated fields?" asked M'Nicholl sourly,wiping his glasses and shrugging his shoulders.
"Certainly cultivated fields!" replied Ardan. "Don't you see thefurrows? They're certainly plain enough. They are white too fromglistening in the sun, but they are quite different from the radiatingstreaks of _Copernicus_. Why, their sides are perfectly parallel!"
"Where are those furrows?" asked M'Nicholl, putting his glasses to hiseye and adjusting the focus.
"You can see them in all directions," answered Ardan; "but two areparticularly visible: one running north from _Archimedes_, the othersouth towards the _Apennines_."
M'Nicholl's face, as he gazed, gradually assumed a grin which soondeveloped into a snicker, if not a positive laugh, as he observed toArdan:
"Your Selenites must be Brobdignagians, their oxen Leviathans, and theirploughs bigger than Marston's famous cannon, if these are furrows!"
"How's that, Barbican?" asked Ardan doubtfully, but unwilling to submitto M'Nicholl.
"They're not furrows, dear friend," said Barbican, "and can't be,either, simply on account of their immense size. They are what theGerman astronomers called _Rillen_; the French, _rainures_, and theEnglish, _grooves_, _canals_, _clefts_, _cracks_, _chasms_, or_fissures_."
"You have a good stock of names for them anyhow," observed Ardan, "ifthat does any good."
"The number of names given them," answered Barbican, "shows how littleis really known about them. They have been observed in all the levelportion of the Moon's surface. Small as they appear to us, a littlecalculation must convince you that they are in some places hundreds ofmiles in length, a mile in width and probably in many points severalmiles in depth. Their width and depth, however, vary, though theirsides, so far as observed, are always rigorously parallel. Let us take agood look at them."
Putting the glass to his eye, Barbican examined the clefts for some timewith close attention. He saw that their banks were sharp edged andextremely steep. In many places they were of such geometrical regularitythat he readily excused Gruithuysen's idea of deeming them to begigantic earthworks thrown up by the Selenite engineers. Some of themwere as straight as if laid out with a line, others were curved a littlehere and there, though still maintaining the strict parallelism of theirsides. These crossed each other; those entered craters and came out atthe other side. Here, they furrowed annular plateaus, such as_Posidonius_ or _Petavius_. There, they wrinkled whole seas, forinstance, _Mare Serenitatis_.
These curious peculiarities of the lunar surface had interested theastronomic mind to a very high degree at their first discovery, and haveproved to be very perplexing problems ever since. The first observers donot seem to have noticed them. Neither Hevelius, nor Cassini, nor LaHire, nor Herschel, makes a single remark regarding their nature.
It was Schroeter, in 1789, who called the attention of scientists tothem for the first time. He had only 11 to show, but Lohrmann soonrecorded 75 more. Pastorff, Gruithuysen, and particularly Beer andMaedler were still more successful, but Julius Schmidt, the famousastronomer of Athens, has raised their number up to 425, and has evenpublished their names in a catalogue. But counting them is one thing,determining their nature is another. They are not fortifications,certainly: and cannot be ancient beds of dried up rivers, for two verygood and sufficient reasons: first, water, even under the most favorablecircumstances on the Moon's surface, could have never ploughed up suchvast channels; secondly, these chasms often traverse lofty cratersthrough and through, like an immense railroad cutting.
At these details, Ardan's imagination became unusually excited and ofcourse it was not without some result. It even happened that he hit onan idea that had already suggested itself to Schmidt of Athens.
"Why not consider them," he asked, "to be the simple phenomena ofvegetation?"
"What do you mean?" asked Barbican.
"Rows of sugar cane?" suggested M'Nicholl with a sn
icker.
"Not exactly, my worthy Captain," answered Ardan quietly, "though youwere perhaps nearer to the mark than you expected. I don't mean exactlyrows of sugar cane, but I do mean vast avenues of trees--poplars, forinstance--planted regularly on each side of a great high road."
"Still harping on vegetation!" said the Captain. "Ardan, what a splendidhistorian was spoiled in you! The less you know about your facts, thereadier you are to account for them."
"_Ma foi_," said Ardan simply, "I do only what the greatest of yourscientific men do--that is, guess. There is this difference howeverbetween us--I call my guesses, guesses, mere conjecture;--they dignifytheirs as profound theories or as astounding discoveries!"
"Often the case, friend Ardan, too often the case," said Barbican.
"In the question under consideration, however," continued the Frenchman,"my conjecture has this advantage over some others: it explains whythese rills appear and seem to disappear at regular intervals."
"Let us hear the explanation," said the Captain.
"They become invisible when the trees lose their leaves, and theyreappear when they resume them."
"His explanation is not without ingenuity," observed Barbican toM'Nicholl, "but, my dear friend," turning to Ardan, "it is hardlyadmissible."
"Probably not," said Ardan, "but why not?"
"Because as the Sun is nearly always vertical to the lunar equator, theMoon can have no change of seasons worth mentioning; therefore hervegetation can present none of the phenomena that you speak of."
This was perfectly true. The slight obliquity of the Moon's axis, only1-1/2 deg., keeps the Sun in the same altitude the whole year around. In theequatorial regions he is always vertical, and in the polar he is neverhigher than the horizon. Therefore, there can be no change of seasons;according to the latitude, it is a perpetual winter, spring, summer, orautumn the whole year round. This state of things is almost preciselysimilar to that which prevails in Jupiter, who also stands nearlyupright in his orbit, the inclination of his axis being only about 3 deg..
But how to account for the _grooves_? A very hard nut to crack. Theymust certainly be a later formation than the craters and the rings, forthey are often found breaking right through the circular ramparts.Probably the latest of all lunar features, the results of the lastgeological epochs, they are due altogether to expansion or shrinkageacting on a large scale and brought about by the great forces of nature,operating after a manner altogether unknown on our earth. Such at leastwas Barbican's idea.
"My friends," he quietly observed, "without meaning to put forward anypretentious claims to originality, but by simply turning to account someadvantages that have never before befallen contemplative mortal eye, whynot construct a little hypothesis of our own regarding the nature ofthese grooves and the causes that gave them birth? Look at that greatchasm just below us, somewhat to the right. It is at least fifty orsixty miles long and runs along the base of the _Apennines_ in a linealmost perfectly straight. Does not its parallelism with the mountainchain suggest a causative relation? See that other mighty _rill_, atleast a hundred and fifty miles long, starting directly north of it andpursuing so true a course that it cleaves _Archimedes_ almost cleanlyinto two. The nearer it lies to the mountain, as you perceive, thegreater its width; as it recedes in either direction it grows narrower.Does not everything point out to one great cause of their origin? Theyare simple crevasses, like those so often noticed on Alpine glaciers,only that these tremendous cracks in the surface are produced by theshrinkage of the crust consequent on cooling. Can we point out someanalogies to this on the Earth? Certainly. The defile of the Jordan,terminating in the awful depression of the Dead Sea, no doubt occurs toyou on the moment. But the _Yosemite Valley_, as I saw it ten years ago,is an apter comparison. There I stood on the brink of a tremendous chasmwith perpendicular walls, a mile in width, a mile in depth and eightmiles in length. Judge if I was astounded! But how should we feel it,when travelling on the lunar surface, we should suddenly find ourselveson the brink of a yawning chasm two miles wide, fifty miles long, and sofathomless in sheer vertical depth as to leave its black profunditiesabsolutely invisible in spite of the dazzling sunlight!"
"I feel my flesh already crawling even in the anticipation!" criedArdan.
"I shan't regret it much if we never get to the Moon," growledM'Nicholl; "I never hankered after it anyhow!"
By this time the Projectile had reached the fortieth degree of lunarlatitude, and could hardly be further than five hundred miles from thesurface, a distance reduced to about 5 miles by the travellers' glasses.Away to their left appeared _Helicon_, a ring mountain about 1600 feethigh; and still further to the left the eye could catch a glimpse of thecliffs enclosing a semi-elliptical portion of _Mare Imbrium_, called the_Sinus Iridium_, or Bay of the Rainbows.
In order to allow astronomers to make complete observations on the lunarsurface, the terrestrial atmosphere should possess a transparencyseventy times greater than its present power of transmission. But in thevoid through which the Projectile was now floating, no fluid whateverinterposed between the eye of the observer and the object observed.Besides, the travellers now found themselves at a distance that hadnever before been reached by the most powerful telescopes, includingeven Lord Rosse's and the great instrument on the Rocky Mountains.Barbican was therefore in a condition singularly favorable to resolvethe great question concerning the Moon's inhabitableness. Nevertheless,the solution still escaped him. He could discover nothing around him buta dreary waste of immense plains, and towards the north, beneath him,bare mountains of the aridest character.
Not the slightest vestige of man's work could be detected over the vastexpanse. Not the slightest sign of a ruin spoke of his ever having beenthere. Nothing betrayed the slightest trace of the development of animallife, even in an inferior degree. No movement. Not the least glimpse ofvegetation. Of the three great kingdoms that hold dominion on thesurface of the globe, the mineral, the vegetable and the animal, onealone was represented on the lunar sphere: the mineral, the wholemineral, and nothing but the mineral.
"Why!" exclaimed Ardan, with a disconcerted look, after a long andsearching examination, "I can't find anybody. Everything is asmotionless as a street in Pompeii at 4 o'clock in the morning!"
THE SOLUTION STILL ESCAPED HIM.]
"Good comparison, friend Ardan;" observed M'Nicholl. "Lava, slag,volcanic eminences, vitreous matter glistening like ice, piles ofscoria, pitch black shadows, dazzling streaks, like rivers of lightbreaking over jagged rocks--these are now beneath my eye--these alone Ican detect--not a man--not an animal--not a tree. The great AmericanDesert is a land of milk and honey in comparison with the joyless orbover which we are now moving. However, even yet we can predicatenothing positive. The atmosphere may have taken refuge in the depths ofthe chasms, in the interior of the craters, or even on the opposite sideof the Moon, for all we know!"
"Still we must remember," observed Barbican, "that even the sharpest eyecannot detect a man at a distance greater than four miles and a-half,and our glasses have not yet brought us nearer than five."
"Which means to say," observed Ardan, "that though we can't see theSelenites, they can see our Projectile!"
But matters had not improved much when, towards four o'clock in themorning, the travellers found themselves on the 50th parallel, and at adistance of only about 375 miles from the lunar surface. Still no traceof the least movement, or even of the lowest form of life.
"What peaked mountain is that which we have just passed on our right?"asked Ardan. "It is quite remarkable, standing as it does in almostsolitary grandeur in the barren plain."
"That is _Pico_," answered Barbican. "It is at least 8000 feet high andis well known to terrestrial astronomers as well by its peculiar shadowas on account of its comparative isolation. See the collection ofperfectly formed little craters nestling around its base."
"Barbican," asked M'Nicholl suddenly, "what peak is that which liesalmost directly south of _Pico_? I se
e it plainly, but I can't find iton my map."
"I have remarked that pyramidal peak myself," replied Barbican; "but Ican assure you that so far it has received no name as yet, although itis likely enough to have been distinguished by the terrestrialastronomers. It can't be less than 4000 feet in height."
"I propose we called it _Barbican_!" cried Ardan enthusiastically.
"Agreed!" answered M'Nicholl, "unless we can find a higher one."
"We must be before-hand with Schmidt of Athens!" exclaimed Ardan. "Hewill leave nothing unnamed that his telescope can catch a glimpse of."
"Passed unanimously!" cried M'Nicholl.
"And officially recorded!" added the Frenchman, making the proper entryon his map.
"_Salve, Mt. Barbican!_" then cried both gentlemen, rising and takingoff their hats respectfully to the distant peak.
"Look to the west!" interrupted Barbican, watching, as usual, while hiscompanions were talking, and probably perfectly unconscious of what theywere saying; "directly to the west! Now tell me what you see!"
"I see a vast valley!" answered M'Nicholl.
"Straight as an arrow!" added Ardan.
"Running through lofty mountains!" cried M'Nicholl.
"Cut through with a pair of saws and scooped out with a chisel!" criedArdan.
"See the shadows of those peaks!" cried M'Nicholl catching fire at thesight. "Black, long, and sharp as if cast by cathedral spires!"
"Oh! ye crags and peaks!" burst forth Ardan; "how I should like to catcheven a faint echo of the chorus you could chant, if a wild storm roaredover your beetling summits! The pine forests of Norwegian mountainshowling in midwinter would not be an accordeon in comparison!"
"Wonderful instance of subsidence on a grand scale!" exclaimed theCaptain, hastily relapsing into science.
"Not at all!" cried the Frenchman, still true to his colors; "nosubsidence there! A comet simply came too close and left its mark as itflew past."
"Fanciful exclamations, dear friends," observed Barbican; "but I'm notsurprised 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 beenhazarded on the subject. All we can state positively at presentregarding this wonderful formation, is what I have just recorded in mynote-book: the _Valley of the Alps_ is about 5 mile wide and 70 or 80long: it is remarkably flat and free from _debris_, though the mountainson each side rise like walls to the height of at least 10,000feet.--Over the whole surface of our Earth I know of no naturalphenomenon that can be at all compared with it."
"Another wonder almost in front of us!" cried Ardan. "I see a vast lakeblack as pitch and round as a crater; it is surrounded by such loftymountains that their shadows reach clear across, rendering the interiorquite invisible!"
"That's _Plato_;" said M'Nicholl; "I know it well; it's the darkest spoton the Moon: many a night I gazed at it from my little observatory inBroad Street, Philadelphia."
"Right, Captain," said Barbican; "the crater _Plato_, is, indeed,generally considered the blackest spot on the Moon, but I am inclined toconsider the spots _Grimaldi_ and _Riccioli_ on the extreme eastern edgeto be somewhat darker. If you take my glass, Ardan, which is of somewhatgreater power than yours, you will distinctly see the bottom of thecrater. The reflective power of its plateau probably proceeds from theexceedingly great number of small craters that you can detect there."
"I think I see something like them now," said Ardan. "But I am sorry theProjectile's course will not give us a vertical view."
"Can't be helped!" said Barbican; "we must go where it takes us. The daymay come when man can steer the projectile or the balloon in which he isshut up, in any way he pleases, but that day has not come yet!"
Towards five in the morning, the northern limit of _Mare Imbrium_ wasfinally passed, and _Mare Frigoris_ spread its frost-colored plainsfar to the right and left. On the east the travellers could easily seethe ring-mountain _Condamine_, about 4000 feet high, while a littleahead on the right they could plainly distinguish _Fontenelle_ with analtitude nearly twice as great. _Mare Frigoris_ was soon passed, and thewhole lunar surface beneath the travellers, as far as they could see inall 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, adistance less than that between the hotel at Chamouni and the summit ofMont Blanc. To the left, they had no difficulty in distinguishing theramparts of _Philolaus_, about 12,000 feet high, but though the craterhad a diameter of nearly thirty miles, the black shadows prevented theslightest sign of its interior from being seen. The Sun was now sinkingvery low, and the illuminated surface of the Moon was reduced to anarrow rim.
By this time, too, the bird's eye view to which the observations had sofar principally confined, decidedly altered its character. They couldnow look back at the lunar mountains that they had been just sailingover--a view somewhat like that enjoyed by a tourist standing on thesummit of Mt. St. Gothard as he sees the sun setting behind the peaks ofthe Bernese Oberland. The lunar landscapes however, though seen underthese new and ever varying conditions, "hardly gained much by thechange," according to Ardan's expression. On the contrary, they looked,if possible, more dreary and inhospitable than before.
The Moon having no atmosphere, the benefit of this gaseous envelope insoftening off and nicely shading the approaches of light and darkness,heat and cold, is never felt on her surface. There, no twilight eversoftly ushers in the brilliant sun, or sweetly heralds the near approachof night's dark shadow. Night follows day, and day night, with thestartling suddenness of a match struck or a lamp extinguished in acavern. Nor can it present any gradual transition from either extreme oftemperature. Hot jumps to cold, and cold jumps to hot. A moment after aglacial midnight, it is a roasting noon. Without an instant's warningthe temperature falls from 212 deg. Fahrenheit to the icy winter ofinterstellar space. The surface is all dazzling glare, or pitchy gloom.Wherever the direct rays of the sun do not fall, darkness reignssupreme. What we call diffused light on Earth, the grateful result ofrefraction, the luminous matter held in suspension by the air, themother of our dawns and our dusks, of our blushing mornings and our dewyeyes, of our shades, our penumbras, our tints and all the other magicaleffects of _chiaro-oscuro_--this diffused light has absolutely noexistence on the surface of the Moon. Nothing is there to break theinexorable contrast between intense white and intense black. At mid-day,let a Selenite shade his eyes and look at the sky: it will appear to himas black as pitch, while the stars still sparkle before him as vividlyas they do to us on the coldest and darkest night in winter.
From this you can judge of the impression made on our travellers bythose strange lunar landscapes. Even their decided novelty and verystrange character produced any thing but a pleasing effect on the organsof sight. With all their enthusiasm, the travellers felt their eyes "getout of gear," as Ardan said, like those of a man blind from his birthand suddenly restored to sight. They could not adjust them so as to beable to realize the different plains of vision. All things seemed in aheap. Foreground and background were indistinguishably commingled. Nopainter could ever transfer a lunar landscape to his canvas.
"Landscape," Ardan said; "what do you mean by a landscape? Can you calla bottle of ink intensely black, spilled over a sheet of paper intenselywhite, a landscape?"
At the eightieth degree, when the Projectile was hardly 100 milesdistant from the Moon, the aspect of things underwent no improvement. Onthe contrary, the nearer the travellers approached the lunar surface,the drearier, the more inhospitable, and the more _unearthly_,everything seem to look. Still when five o'clock in the morning broughtour travellers to within 50 miles of _Mount Gioja_--which theirspy-glasses rendered as visible as if it was only about half a mile off,Ardan could not control himself.
"Why, we're there" he exclaimed; "we can touch her with our hands! Openthe wind
ows and let me out! Don't mind letting me go by myself. It isnot very inviting quarters I admit. But as we are come to the jumpingoff place, I want to see the whole thing through. Open the lower windowand let me out. I can take care of myself!"
"That's what's more than any other man can do," said M'Nicholl drily,"who wants to take a jump of 50 miles!"
"Better not try it, friend Ardan," said Barbican grimly: "think ofSatellite! The Moon is no more attainable by your body than by ourProjectile. You are far more comfortable in here than when floatingabout in empty space like a bolide."
Ardan, unwilling to quarrel with his companions, appeared to give in;but he secretly consoled himself by a hope which he had beenentertaining for some time, and which now looked like assuming theappearance of a certainty. The Projectile had been lately approachingthe Moon's surface so rapidly that it at last seemed actually impossiblenot to finally touch it somewhere in the neighborhood of the north pole,whose dazzling ridges now presented themselves in sharp and strongrelief against the black sky. Therefore he kept silent, but quietlybided his time.
The Projectile moved on, evidently getting nearer and nearer to thelunar surface. The Moon now appeared to the travellers as she does to ustowards the beginning of her Second Quarter, that is as a brightcrescent instead of a hemisphere. On one side, glaring dazzling light;on the other, cavernous pitchy darkness. The line separating both wasbroken into a thousand bits of protuberances and concavities, dented,notched, and jagged.
At six o'clock the travellers found themselves exactly over the northpole. They were quietly gazing at the rapidly shifting features of thewondrous view unrolling itself beneath them, and were silently wonderingwhat was to come next, when, suddenly, the Projectile passed thedividing line. The Sun and Moon instantly vanished from view. The nextmoment, without the slightest warning the travellers found themselvesplunged in an ocean of the most appalling darkness!