To Mars via The Moon

by Mark Wicks

  CHAPTER VI

  THE SCENERY OF THE MOON'S SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE

  I now directed M'Allister to steer across the lunar equator into thesouthern hemisphere, and our attention was soon attracted by a verylarge walled plain on the eastward side of our course.

  John asked me what it was called, and I explained that it was namedGrimaldi, being also well known to observers as the darkest tinted ofall the large lunar formations. As seen from the earth it appears anarrow ellipse, but we could see its full width, which is 129 miles, thelength being 148 miles. It is also noteworthy as one of the few plainswhich are convex in section, and it is so large that its area is equalto the combined area of the whole of the counties of England south ofthe line of the Thames, including Cornwall.

  I showed M'Allister this formation on our map, where it appears only anarrow ellipse in consequence of the moon's curvature, and pointed outhow very different was its appearance now we could see over its wholeextent. Other formations nearer to the moon's limb appear still moreforeshortened when viewed from the earth.

  John here remarked that "these large ring-plains covered immense areas,and, now that we could actually see them, their magnitude was moreimpressive than anything we could have imagined from merely hearing orreading about them."

  "Yes, John," I said, "from our altitude of more than ten miles above thelunar surface we command a much more extensive view and gain a betterknowledge of details than we could obtain even if we landed on the moon.For instance, if we could stand down in the centre of one of those verylarge rings, we should imagine we were in the midst of a boundless openplain. The mountains all around us would be so distant that, owing tothe sharp curvature of the lunar sphere, they would all be below thehorizon, notwithstanding the fact that many of them are severalthousands of feet in height. So, for all we could see of them, thosemountains might be non-existent.

  "In the case of somewhat smaller rings we might perhaps see, here andthere above the horizon, just the topmost peaks of some of the morelofty mountains."

  M'Allister was now struck with an idea, and exclaimed, "Professor, Inotice that many of these great walled plains are very flat, and Ishould think they would make fine golf-links, for there would be plentyof room to send the ball flying!"

  "Undoubtedly," I answered, "you would have plenty of space for that; andI can tell you that you would be able to send the ball flying six timesas far as you could on the earth with the same expenditure of force,because the moon's gravitation is only one-sixth of that of the earth."

  "That would be grand," said M'Allister. "I should like to have a fewturns at golf on the moon."

  "Ah, but you would also have extra long tramps after your ball," I toldhim, "so you would get plenty of exercise; but, for the reason alreadymentioned, you would be able to get over the ground six times aseasily."

  "Well, Professor, I should not mind the distance in thosecircumstances," he answered jauntily.

  "Perhaps you like jumping exercise too," I said. "Only fancy,M'Allister, if you wanted to jump across one of those narrower cracks!Why, if you could jump a distance of ten feet on the earth, you couldjump sixty feet on the moon just as easily! Some of our athletes havejumped a length of twenty-six feet, so the same persons could with equalease jump 156 feet on the moon! What do you think of that for a longjump?"

  "Heh, Professor," he replied, looking rather bewildered, "what a jump!Why, I should think the mon was never coming down again!"

  "I say, though, M'Allister, after all I am inclined to think you wouldnot find golf on the moon altogether a pleasant game," said John.

  "Why not, mon?" inquired M'Allister.

  "Well," answered John, "I was thinking that if you sent your ball flyinginto one of those cracks which are several miles deep you would findyourself eternally 'bunkered,' for no niblick ever made would get youout of that."

  M'Allister laughed so heartily at this idea of John's that we bothjoined in his mirth; then I recommended him to wait until we reachedMars if he wished to enjoy a game of golf, for there he would be sure tofind enormous stretches of level ground.

  _From a coloured drawing by M. Wicks_ Plate III

  CHART OF THE MOON, SHOWING THE PRINCIPAL FORMATIONS SEEN ON ITS SURFACE

  The dark areas are termed seas, though there is no water on the moon.The many small rings are ring-mountains and ring-plains. (The North Poleis at the top.)]

  Plate IV

  INDEX MAP TO CHART OF THE MOON

  1. Bay of Rainbows

  2. Plato

  3. Sea of Cold

  4. Alps Mountains

  5. Great Alpine Valley

  6. Cassini

  7. Autolycus

  8. Aristillus

  9. Archimedes

  10. Timocharis

  11. Lambert

  12. Euler

  13. Sea of Showers

  14. Aristarchus

  15. Herodotus

  16. Ocean of Storms

  17. Copernicus

  18. Apennine Mountains

  19. Sea of Serenity

  20. Haemus Mountains

  21. Sea of Conflicts

  22. Proclus

  23. Sea of Tranquillity

  24. Sea of Fertility

  25. Hevel

  26. Kepler

  27. Grimaldi

  28. Flamsteed

  29. Bonpland

  30. Gassendi

  31. Sea of Vapours

  32. Hipparchus

  33. Albategnius

  34. Ptolemaeus

  35. Alphonsus

  36. Arzachel

  37. Theophilus

  38. Cyrillus

  39. Catherina

  40. Sea of Nectar

  41. Langrenus

  42. Vendelinus

  43. Petavius

  44. Schickard

  45. Wargentin

  46. Tycho

  47. Maurolycus

  48. Clavius

  49. Newton

  50. Straight Wall

  51. Sea of Moisture

  52. Sea of Clouds]

  Proceeding on our tour of inspection, we crossed the Ocean of Storms toa point near the central part of the lunar surface, and I showed themthe fine walled plain called Ptolemaeus. This is 115 miles in diameter,and contains an area as large as the combined areas of Yorkshire,Lancashire, and Westmorland, its highest peak being 9000 feet inaltitude. It forms the most northerly of a line of walled plains, themost southerly being Arzachel, which is sixty-six miles in diameter, andhas a very depressed floor; while one peak on the walls rises to aheight of 13,000 feet.

  Passing farther west, we next examined another splendid group of threering-mountains, arranged in a line running nearly north and south, viz.Theophilus, Cyrillus, and Catherina. The first is the most northerly,and is about sixty-four miles in diameter, with several very highpeaks--one rising as much as 18,000 feet, and two on the opposite sidebeing 16,000 and 14,000 feet high respectively. Even the centralmountain is very large in area, and 6000 feet high. "That," I remarkedto M'Allister, "is nearly half as high again as Ben Nevis, the highestmountain in Scotland, which is, after all, only 4400 feet high."

  "Ben Nevis, Professor, is 4406 feet high!" corrected M'Allister.

  "That's right, M'Allister," said John, clapping him on the back, "stickup for bonnie Scotland, and don't let her be robbed of that six feet ofmountain!"

  Proceeding, I then said that Cyrillus, the middle ring, was, as theycould see, very irregular in shape; and the walls were in some partsvery much broken and damaged.

  Catherina is the largest of the three, being over seventy miles indiameter, and its highest peak is 16,500 feet in altitude.

  I should have liked to have shown them the splendid double-walled plaincalled Petavius, which has a convex floor some 800 feet higher in thecentre than at the edges. We were, however, too late both for that andLangrenus, another fine formation on the same meridian, for the sun hadset upon them and they were in darkness, so it was no use going anyfarthe
r in that direction.

  We now directed our course over the Sea of Clouds till we arrived atwhat is known as the "Straight Wall."

  "M'Allister," I said, "that ought to interest you, for there is asomewhat similar formation in Scotland. You see this is an escarpment,or cliff, over sixty miles long, and varying from about 600 feet to 900feet in height.

  "This cliff is one of the best known examples on the moon of what ingeology is termed a 'fault,' indicating either that one part of thegeneral surface has been greatly elevated, or that the adjoining parthas been depressed. We have many examples of such 'faults' on theearth--for instance, one runs a long way across Scotland, fromStonehaven round to Helensburgh, between the Highlands and the Lowlands,and is about 120 miles in length. That is about twice the length of theStraight Wall; so you see that Scotland can beat the moon in thatrespect!"

  This brought M'Allister up to the scratch. "Scotland," he exclaimedexcitedly, "can hold her own in most things! Why, mon, the empire isindebted to her for the finest statesmen, the cleverest lawyers, thebest engineers and scientists, and, allow me to say, the bravestsoldiers in the whole world! Scotsmen go everywhere, and can doanything!"

  "Oh yes, M'Allister," said John, with a laugh, "and a Scotsman has gotto the moon! but, please, do not forget that two Englishmen planned thetrip, and devised the means of accomplishing the journey!"

  M'Allister smiled a rather wintry smile, and then subsided. John was abit too smart for him that time.

  Passing on, we inspected the large cleft running parallel to theStraight Wall, and the small mountain close by named after Birt, thewell-known selenographer. We then crossed the Sea of Clouds again, andhad a long look at the great system of straight clefts near Campanus andHippalus, together with the fine walled plain Gassendi, the floor ofwhich is at some parts 2000 feet above the lunar surface. I had oftenstudied this through the telescope, as it is a most interestingformation.

  "Well, Professor," remarked M'Allister, "I have travelled nearly allover our own world, but in all my journeyings I have never seen suchwild and rugged scenery as I have during the few hours we have beenpassing over the moon. The mountains seem to be split and rent in alldirections, especially where there are volcanic craters in theneighbourhood--and, really, they seem to be everywhere; while landslipsare very numerous, and the mountain passes are extremely rugged andgloomy."

  "Yes," I replied, "my telescopic observations had prepared me for agreat deal, but the weird ruggedness of the lunar scenery exceeds allmy anticipations."

  "What is the explanation of it all?" M'Allister inquired.

  "I should think, M'Allister, that much of it was originally caused bythe extreme violence of volcanic outbursts," I answered; "but theexcessive expansion and contraction, resulting from the alternate spellsof intense heat and intense cold to which the moon is continuallyexposed, will account for the formation of many of those tremendouschasms and precipices which we see everywhere around us, as well as forthe huge mounds of dislodged rocks and _debris_, which are piled up insuch chaotic confusion on the ledges of the mountains and round theirbases.

  "On the earth such _debris_ would very soon have become smoothed byatmospheric erosion, the interstices would have been filled up with dustand soil, while the growth of vegetation would have added a new charm tothe effect.

  "You have seen the great landslip in the Isle of Wight! When it fell allwas wild desolation, but it has become covered with such a luxuriantgrowth of vegetation that it now presents a scene of beauty.

  "On the moon, however, there is neither atmosphere, rain, nor moistureto produce weathering of the rocks or to encourage the growth ofvegetation; so the rocks remain just as sharp, rugged, and bare as theywere ages ago when they were first split off from the mountains.

  "No doubt very large masses of rocks are still frequently beingdislodged, and if we could see them falling from the upper part of amountain, rebounding along the spurs, with fragments flying in alldirections and ultimately dashing to pieces at the base, it would seemto us most uncanny not to hear the slightest sound arising from all thisapparent commotion. Without an atmosphere, however, no sound could beproduced, no matter how many thousands of tons of rock might fall to theground.

  "Tremendous changes of this nature may be happening on the moon, but ourtelescopes are not powerful enough to enable us to see the results. Theywould have to cover an area of miles to be noticeable, unless theypresented some particularly striking configuration."

  "Professor," exclaimed M'Allister, "how is it that all the shadows onthe moon are such a dense black and so sharply defined at the edges?"

  "That," I exclaimed, "is entirely owing to the absence of theatmosphere. On the earth, even at night time, some light is diffused byour atmosphere, and shadows are never dense black even when thrown by abright sun. On the moon it is black darkness everywhere outside thedirect rays of the sun, and there is no gradual diminution of thedarkness about the edges of shadows such as we see on the earth. Theonly mitigation of the blackness is seen where some light is reflectedacross from the rocky walls on which the sun is shining.

  "In those deep recesses down at the bases of the mountains the cold mustbe most intense and the darkness truly awful. It all looks very nicewhen the sun is shining, but appearances are often deceptive, and do notimprove on a closer acquaintance."

  We could not have landed upon the moon if we had desired to do so, forno provision had been made for a supply of air by means of helmets andother apparatus. I kept my own counsel in this matter, as I had verygood reasons for discountenancing any proposal to investigate the lunarscenery too closely.

  By a curious coincidence, not long after this conversation we had oculardemonstration of the fact that the moon is liable to changes from otheragencies than those of expansion and contraction.

  We were looking at some distant mountains which were in the fullsunshine. Suddenly a dark shadowy looking mass shot across the sky andstruck one of the mountain peaks some distance down from the top. Thepeak seemed to be immediately demolished, and vanished from our sight!

  M'Allister gazed spellbound; but John excitedly exclaimed: "Did you seethat, Professor? One moment the peak was there, and the next moment itwas gone!"

  "Yes," I said. "Undoubtedly that dark shadow was a large meteoric stone.Many have fallen on our earth at various times, some being tons inweight. Usually, however, they are so small that on entering ouratmosphere they become fused by the friction and changed to dust. Largerones are partially fused, and often split into fragments in the upperair. The moon, having no atmosphere, is quite unprotected in thisrespect; and meteorites moving at enormous speeds, probably over fortymiles in a second, travel unchecked and unaltered in character untilthey strike the lunar surface. It is estimated that immense numbersconstantly enter our atmosphere and are destroyed; but the moon must becontinually exposed to bombardment by meteorites of considerable size.

  "Many of our ships have been lost at sea in calm weather, and their fatehas remained a profound mystery; but it is not at all improbable thatsome of them have been destroyed by large meteorites, for severalinstances are recorded of ships having very narrow escapes from thesedangerous missiles from outer space."

  Passing on towards the south-west, we had a long look at the magnificentformation named Tycho. It is a ring-plain nearly fifty-six miles indiameter, the mountain walls having some peaks over 17,000 feet inheight. I drew their attention to the long bright ray-streaks whichradiate in all directions for many hundreds of miles from theneighbourhood of this formation, to which I alluded when we had beenlooking at the rays from Proclus. Tycho and these bright streaks can beseen from the earth when the moon is full without the aid of atelescope, if one possesses good eyesight.

  An enormous number of ring-plains and ring-mountains exists all over thesouthern half of the moon's disc; in many cases there are rings withinrings, and others where they have overlapped or cut into previouslyformed rings.

  Moving almost due south, we passed the large
but partially ruined walledplain known as Maginus. This ring has a floor which is no less than14,000 feet below the lunar surface. We then arrived at that favouriteobject for telescopic observers which is named Clavius. This is anenormous ring-plain, being over 142 miles in diameter, and encloses anarea of 16,000 square miles, thus being half the area of Scotland. Ithas a very depressed floor, and some of the mountains are 16,000 to17,000 feet in altitude.

  Farther on, and close to the south pole, we saw the very deepest of thelunar walled plains, which is named after Newton, who possessed probablythe deepest intellect of any of our astronomers. A smaller formationsouth of Plato was originally named after him, but was not consideredworthy of a man of his scientific eminence, so the name was transferredto the formation we were looking upon. It is about 143 miles long andvery irregular in shape, and its depth is about 24,000 feet--so deep, infact, that the sun's light never reaches to the bottom; thus, when welook at it from the earth, the floor is always in shadow.

  The Leibnitz Mountains, unfortunately, were not visible, as the sun hadset upon them. I, however, mentioned that this range comprises severalpeaks which are believed to be the highest on the lunar surface,reaching as they do an altitude of 30,000 feet, and, according to somemeasurements, 40,000 feet. They are very difficult to measure, owing tothe fact that they are really situated on the farther side of the moon,extending east and west of the south pole, and are only occasionallybrought into view by the moon's libration; even then they are seen inprofile, and so situated that they cannot be measured with certainty.They are, however, so high that they blunt the southern cusp of the moonwhen it is in crescent form.

  I now directed M'Allister to turn the vessel in a north-easterlydirection, and we moved across to the last objects which I proposed toexamine. One was the large walled plain "Schickard"--about 135 miles indiameter--which encloses several other rings; the other, which lies tothe south-east of it and close to the moon's south-eastern limb, isprobably the most unique object on the lunar surface. As we gazed uponit I explained that the formation, which is known as "Wargentin," wouldprobably in the usual course of events have been a ring-plain aboutfifty-four miles in diameter, but it really is a high plateau of thatsize, with very low ramparts. It is evidently a ring-plain which becamefilled to the brim with lava, or mud, that welled up from the interiorof the moon; and the mountain walls, being exceptionally strong andwithout any breaks or gaps, withstood the enormous pressure of the lava,which therefore solidified and formed the great plateau as we now seeit. The low ramparts, which we noticed here and there, are really theisolated peaks and ridges of the mountains forming the walls. This isthe only known instance of such a formation; but probably others wouldexist had not the walls of the rings given way under the pressure of thelava. The walls of several ring-plains have been quite carried away,and, in some cases so obliterated, that it is now difficult to make outthe original shape of the rings.

  Having taken a last look at this unique object, I directed M'Allister toset the machinery in motion and rise for the purpose of quitting themoon.

  "But," interposed John, "are you not going to have a look at the back ofthe moon, Professor?"

  "No, John," I answered, "only a small portion of it is now in thesunlight, the rest is in the blackest darkness, so we should not belikely to learn much more about it than we know at present."

  "Do you think the moon is inhabited?" he then asked.

  "No, I do not think it is; no sign of life has ever been discovered, andwe have seen nothing to indicate its existence here. The prevailingconditions seem to preclude the possibility. Think, John, if there isany life, what must it be! Without any atmosphere--therefore, not asound to be heard, for all would ever be in the most deathly silence--nobreath of wind; never a cloud nor a drop of refreshing rain, nor evendew; intense heat in the sunlight and the most intense cold everywherein the shade! If any life does exist, it is most probably down in thosegloomy, dark and cold recesses at the bottom of the ring-mountains,where there may possibly be some remains of an atmosphere. It would,however, be life in such a dreadful and debased form that I would rathernot think about it at all.

  "For a somewhat similar reason, I have directed M'Allister to keep the_Areonal_ at least ten miles above the lunar surface all the time wehave been passing over it. When we saw it from a distance it was, as youknow, an object of surpassing beauty; and as we have seen it from hereit has still been pleasant to look upon. This is truly a case wheredistance lends enchantment to the view; for, if we went down close tothe surface, we should find it a scene of the weirdest and wildestdesolation--more horrible than anything seen during a nightmare, andmore terrible than anything imagined by the insane!

  "No, John," I concluded, "let us retain our memory of the moon as athing of beauty, and leave it at that."

  "I quite agree with your view of the matter, Professor," John replied;so I gave the signal to M'Allister, who was awaiting the result of ourdiscussion, and we soon left the moon far below us.