From the Earth to the Moon, Direct in Ninety-Seven Hours and Twenty Minutes: and a Trip Round It

by Jules Verne

  CHAPTER XIII.

  LUNAR LANDSCAPES.

  At half-past two in the morning, the projectile was over the thirteenthlunar parallel and at the effective distance of 500 miles, reduced bythe glasses to five. It still seemed impossible, however, that it couldever touch any part of the disc. Its motive speed, comparatively somoderate, was inexplicable to President Barbicane. At that distance fromthe moon it must have been considerable, to enable it to bear up againsther attraction. Here was a phenomenon the cause of which escaped themagain. Besides, time failed them to investigate the cause. All lunarrelief was defiling under the eyes of the travellers, and they would notlose a single detail.

  Under the glasses the disc appeared at the distance of five miles. Whatwould an aeronaut, borne to this distance from the earth, distinguish onits surface? We cannot say, since the greatest ascension has not beenmore than 25,000 feet.

  This, however, is an exact description of what Barbicane and his companionssaw at this height. Large patches of different colours appeared on thedisc. Selenographers are not agreed upon the nature of these colours.There are several, and rather vividly marked. Julius Schmidt pretendsthat, if the terrestrial oceans were dried up, a Selenite observer couldnot distinguish on the globe a greater diversity of shades between theoceans and the continental plains than those on the moon present to aterrestrial observer. According to him, the colour common to the vastplains known by the name of "seas" is a dark grey mixed with green andbrown. Some of the large craters present the same appearance. Barbicaneknew this opinion of the German selenographer, an opinion shared by Boeerand Moedler. Observation has proved that right was on their side, and noton that of some astronomers who admit the existence of only grey on themoon'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, whichshed a bluish tint similar to the reflection of a sheet of steel freshlypolished. These colours belonged really to the lunar disc, and did notresult, as some astronomers say, either from the imperfection in theobjective of the glasses or from the interposition of the terrestrialatmosphere.

  Not a doubt existed in Barbicane's mind with regard to it, as he observedit through space, and so could not commit any optical error. He consideredthe establishment of this fact as an acquisition to science. Now, werethese shades of green, belonging to tropical vegetation, kept up by alow dense atmosphere? He could not yet say.

  Farther on, he noticed a reddish tint, quite defined. The same shade hadbefore been observed at the bottom of an isolated enclosure, known bythe name of Lichtenburg's circle, which is situated near the Hercynianmountains, on the borders of the moon; but they could not tell the natureof it.

  They were not more fortunate with regard to another peculiarity of thedisc, for they could not decide upon the cause of it.

  Michel Ardan was watching near the president, when he noticed longwhite lines, vividly lighted up by the direct rays of the sun. It wasa succession of luminous furrows, very different from the radiation ofCopernicus not long before; they ran parallel with each other.

  Michel, with his usual readiness, hastened to exclaim,-- "Look there!cultivated fields!"

  Illustration: "WHAT GIANT OXEN."

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

  "Ploughed, at all events," retorted Michel Ardan; "but what labourersthose Selenites must be, and what giant oxen they must harness to theirplough to cut such furrows!"

  "They are not furrows," said Barbicane; "they are _rifts_."

  "Rifts? stuff!" replied Michel mildly; "but what do you mean by 'rifts'in the scientific world?"

  Barbicane immediately enlightened his companion as to what he knew aboutlunar rifts. He knew that they were a kind of furrow found on every partof the disc which was not mountainous; that these furrows, generallyisolated, measured from 400 to 500 leagues in length; that their breadthvaried from 1000 to 1500 yards, and that their borders were strictlyparallel; but he knew nothing more either of their formation or theirnature.

  Barbicane, through his glasses, observed these rifts with great attention.He noticed that their borders were formed of steep declivities; theywere long parallel ramparts, and with some small amount of imaginationhe might have admitted the existence of long lines of fortifications,raised by Selenite engineers. Of these different rifts some were perfectlystraight, as if cut by a line; others were slightly curved, though stillkeeping their borders parallel; some crossed each other, some cut throughcraters; here they wound through ordinary cavities, such as Posidonius orPetavius; there they wound through the seas, such as the Sea of Serenity.

  These natural accidents naturally excited the imaginations of theseterrestrial astronomers. The first observations had not discovered theserifts. Neither Hevelius, Cassim, La Hire, nor Herschel seemed to haveknown them. It was Schroeter who in 1789 first drew attention to them.Others followed who studied them, as Pastorff, Gruithuysen, Boeer, andMoedler. At this time their number amounts to seventy; but, if theyhave been counted, their nature has not yet been determined; they arecertainly not fortifications, any more than they are the ancient beds ofdried-up rivers; for, on one side, the waters, so slight on the moon'ssurface, could never have worn such drains for themselves; and, on theother, they often cross craters of great elevation.

  We must, however, allow that Michel Ardan had "an idea," and that,without knowing it, he coincided in that respect with Julius Schmidt.

  "Why," said he, "should not these unaccountable appearances be simplyphenomena of vegetation?"

  "What do you mean?" asked Barbicane quickly.

  "Do not excite yourself, my worthy president," replied Michel; "might itnot be possible that the dark lines forming that bastion were rows oftrees regularly placed?"

  "You stick to your vegetation, then?" said Barbicane.

  "I like," retorted Michel Ardan, "to explain what you savants cannotexplain; at least my hypothesis has the advantage of indicating why theserifts disappear, or seem to disappear, at certain seasons."

  "And for what reason?"

  "For the reason that the trees become invisible when they lose theirleaves, and visible when they regain them."

  "Your explanation is ingenious, my dear companion," replied Barbicane,"but inadmissible."

  "Why?"

  "Because, so to speak, there are no seasons on the moon's surface, andthat, consequently, the phenomena of vegetation of which you speak cannotoccur."

  Indeed, the slight obliquity of the lunar axis keeps the sun at an almostequal height in every latitude. Above the equatorial regions the radiantorb almost invariably occupies the zenith, and does not pass the limitsof the horizon in the polar regions; thus, according to each region,there reigns a perpetual winter, spring, summer, or autumn, as in theplanet Jupiter, whose axis is but little inclined upon its orbit.

  Illustration: HE COULD DISTINGUISH NOTHING BUT DESERT BEDS.

  What origin do they attribute to these rifts? That is a question difficultto solve. They are certainly anterior to the formation of craters andcircles, for several have introduced themselves by breaking through theircircular ramparts. Thus it may be that, contemporary with the lattergeological epochs, they are due to the expansion of natural forces.

  But the projectile had now attained the 40 deg. of lunar lat., at adistance not exceeding 400 miles. Through the glasses objects appearedto be only four miles distant.

  At this point, under their feet, rose Mount Helicon, 1520 feet high,and round about the left rose moderate elevations, enclosing a smallportion of the "Sea of Rains," under the name of the Gulf of Iris. Theterrestrial atmosphere would have to be one hundred and seventy times moretransparent than it is, to allow astronomers to make perfect observationson the moon's surface; but in the void in which the projectile floatedno fluid interposed itself between the eye of the observer and theobject observed. And more, Barbicane found himself carried to a greaterdistance than the m
ost powerful telescopes had ever done before, eitherthat of Lord Rosse or that of the Rocky Mountains. He was, therefore,under extremely favourable conditions for solving that great questionof the habitability of the moon; but the solution still escaped him; hecould distinguish nothing but desert beds, immense plains, and towardsthe north, arid mountains. Not a work betrayed the hand of man; not aruin marked his course; not a group of animals was to be seen indicatinglife, even in an inferior degree. In no part was there life, in no partwas there an appearance of vegetation. Of the three kingdoms which sharethe terrestrial globe between them, one alone was represented on thelunar and that the mineral.

  "Ah, indeed!" said Michel Ardan, a little out of countenance; "then yousee no one?"

  "No," answered Nicholl; "up to this time not a man, not an animal, nota tree! After all, whether the atmosphere has taken refuge at the bottomof cavities, in the midst of the circles, or even on the opposite faceof the moon, we cannot decide."

  "Besides," added Barbicane, "even to the most piercing eye a man cannotbe distinguished farther than three miles and a half off; so that, ifthere are any Selenites, they can see our projectile, but we cannot seethem."

  Towards four in the morning, at the height of the fiftieth parallel, thedistance was reduced to 300 miles. To the left ran a line of mountainscapriciously shaped, lying in the full light. To the right, on thecontrary, lay a black hollow resembling a vast well, unfathomable andgloomy, drilled into the lunar soil.

  This hole was the "Black Lake;" it was Pluto, a deep circle which can beconveniently studied from the earth, between the last quarter and thenew moon, when the shadows fall from west to east.

  This black colour is rarely met with on the surface of the satellite. Asyet 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 thebottom of Grimaldi's circle, on the equator, towards the eastern borderof the orb.

  Pluto is an annular mountain, situated in 51 deg. north latitude, and 9deg. east longitude. Its circuit is forty-seven miles long and thirty-twobroad.

  Barbicane regretted that they were not passing directly above this vastopening. There was an abyss to fathom, perhaps some mysterious phenomenonto surprise; but the projectile's course could not be altered. They mustrigidly submit. They could not guide a balloon, still less a projectile,when once enclosed within its walls. Towards five in the morning thenorthern limits of the Sea of Rains was at length passed. The mountsof Condamine and Fontenelle remained--one on the right, the other onthe left. That part of the disc beginning with 60 deg. was becoming quitemountainous. The glasses brought them to within two miles, less thanthat separating the summit of Mont Blanc from the level of the sea. Thewhole region was bristling with spikes and circles. Towards the 60 deg.Philolaus stood predominant at a height of 5550 feet with its ellipticalcrater, and seen from this distance, the disc showed a very fantasticalappearance. Landscapes were presented to the eye under very differentconditions from those on the earth, and also very inferior tothem.

  The moon having no atmosphere, the consequences arising from the absenceof this gaseous envelope have already been shown. No twilight on hersurface; night following day and day following night with the suddennessof a lamp which is extinguished or lighted amidst profound darkness,--notransition from cold to heat, the temperature falling in an instant fromboiling point to the cold of space.

  Another consequence of this want of air is that absolute darknessreigns where the sun's rays do not penetrate. That which on earth iscalled diffusion of light, that luminous matter which the air holds insuspension, which creates the twilight and the daybreak, which producesthe _umbrae_ and the _penumbrae_, and all the magic of _chiaro-oscuro_,does not exist on the moon. Hence the harshness of contrasts, which onlyadmit of two colours, black and white. If a Selenite were to shade hiseyes from the sun's rays, the sky would seem absolutely black, and thestars would shine to him as on the darkest night. Judge of the impressionproduced on Barbicane and his three friends by this strange scene! Theireyes were confused. They could no longer grasp the respective distancesof the different plains. A lunar landscape without the softening of thephenomena of _chiaro-oscuro_ could not be rendered by an earthly landscapepainter: it would be spots of ink on a white page--nothingmore.

  This aspect was not altered even when the projectile, at the height of80 deg., 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-fivemiles from the mountain of Gioja, a distance reduced by the glasses toa quarter of a mile. It seemed as if the moon might be touched by thehand! It seemed impossible that, before long, the projectile would notstrike her, if only at the north pole, the brilliant arch of which wasso distinctly visible on the black sky.

  Michel Ardan wanted to open one of the scuttles and throw himself on tothe moon's surface! A very useless attempt; for if the projectile couldnot attain any point whatever of the satellite, Michel, carried along byits motion, could not attain it either.

  At that moment, at six o'clock, the lunar pole appeared. The disc onlypresented to the travellers' gaze one half brilliantly lit up, whilstthe other disappeared in the darkness. Suddenly the projectile passedthe line of demarcation between intense light and absolute darkness, andwas plunged in profound night!