The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 05

by Anthology

  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° and east long. 16°; but the chain of the Carpathians was visible from 18° to 30° 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° and east long. 29°, 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 aëronaut 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 ma
n 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.