by Jules Verne
CHAPTER XIII
LUNAR LANDSCAPES
At half-past two in the morning, the projectile was over thethirteenth lunar parallel and at the effective distance of fivehundred miles, reduced by the glasses to five. It still seemedimpossible, however, that it could ever touch any part of the disc.Its motive speed, comparatively so moderate, was inexplicable toPresident Barbicane. At that distance from the moon it must havebeen 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 lunarrelief was defiling under the eyes of the travelers, and theywould not lose a single detail.
Under the glasses the disc appeared at the distance of fivemiles. What would an aeronaut, borne to this distance from theearth, distinguish on its surface? We cannot say, since thegreatest ascension has not been more than 25,000 feet.
This, however, is an exact description of what Barbicane and hiscompanions saw at this height. Large patches of differentcolors appeared on the disc. Selenographers are not agreed uponthe nature of these colors. There are several, and rathervividly marked. Julius Schmidt pretends that, if theterrestrial oceans were dried up, a Selenite observer could notdistinguish on the globe a greater diversity of shades betweenthe oceans and the continental plains than those on the moonpresent to a terrestrial observer. According to him, the colorcommon to the vast plains known by the name of "seas" is a darkgray mixed with green and brown. Some of the large craterspresent the same appearance. Barbicane knew this opinion of theGerman selenographer, an opinion shared by Boeer and Moedler.Observation has proved that right was on their side, and not onthat of some astronomers who admit the existence of only gray onthe moon's surface. In some parts green was very distinct, suchas springs, according to Julius Schmidt, from the seas of"Serenity and Humors." Barbicane also noticed large craters,without any interior cones, which shed a bluish tint similar tothe reflection of a sheet of steel freshly polished. These colorsbelonged really to the lunar disc, and did not result, as someastronomers say, either from the imperfection in the objectiveof the glasses or from the interposition of the terrestrial atmosphere.
Not a doubt existed in Barbicane's mind with regard to it, as heobserved it through space, and so could not commit any optical error.He considered the establishment of this fact as an acquisitionto science. Now, were these shades of green, belonging totropical vegetation, kept up by a low dense atmosphere? He couldnot yet say.
Farther on, he noticed a reddish tint, quite defined. The sameshade had before been observed at the bottom of an isolatedenclosure, known by the name of Lichtenburg's circle, which issituated near the Hercynian mountains, on the borders of themoon; but they could not tell the nature of it.
They were not more fortunate with regard to another peculiarityof the disc, for they could not decide upon the cause of it.
Michel Ardan was watching near the president, when he noticedlong white lines, vividly lighted up by the direct rays of the sun.It was a succession of luminous furrows, very different from theradiation of Copernicus not long before; they ran parallel witheach other.
Michel, with his usual readiness, hastened to exclaim:
"Look there! cultivated fields!"
"Cultivated fields!" replied Nicholl, shrugging his shoulders.
"Plowed, at all events," retorted Michel Ardan; "but whatlaborers those Selenites must be, and what giant oxen they mustharness to their plow 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 heknew about lunar rifts. He knew that they were a kind of furrowfound on every part of the disc which was not mountainous; thatthese furrows, generally isolated, measured from 400 to 500leagues in length; that their breadth varied from 1,000 to 1,500yards, and that their borders were strictly parallel; but heknew nothing more either of their formation or their nature.
Barbicane, through his glasses, observed these rifts withgreat attention. He noticed that their borders were formed ofsteep declivities; they were long parallel ramparts, and with somesmall amount of imagination he might have admitted the existenceof long lines of fortifications, raised by Selenite engineers.Of these different rifts some were perfectly straight, as if cutby a line; others were slightly curved, though still keepingtheir borders parallel; some crossed each other, some cut throughcraters; here they wound through ordinary cavities, such asPosidonius or Petavius; there they wound through the seas, suchas the "Sea of Serenity."
These natural accidents naturally excited the imaginations ofthese terrestrial astronomers. The first observations had notdiscovered these rifts. Neither Hevelius, Cassin, La Hire, norHerschel seemed to have known them. It was Schroeter who in1789 first drew attention to them. Others followed who studiedthem, as Pastorff, Gruithuysen, Boeer, and Moedler. At thistime their number amounts to seventy; but, if they have beencounted, their nature has not yet been determined; they arecertainly _not_ fortifications, any more than they are theancient beds of dried-up rivers; for, on one side, the waters,so slight on the moon's surface, could never have worn suchdrains for themselves; and, on the other, they often crosscraters of great elevation.
We must, however, allow that Michel Ardan had "an idea," andthat, without knowing it, he coincided in that respect withJulius Schmidt.
"Why," said he, "should not these unaccountable appearances besimply phenomena of vegetation?"
"What do you mean?" asked Barbicane quickly.
"Do not excite yourself, my worthy president," replied Michel;"might it not be possible that the dark lines forming thatbastion were rows of trees regularly placed?"
"You stick to your vegetation, then?" said Barbicane.
"I like," retorted Michel Ardan, "to explain what you savantscannot explain; at least my hypotheses has the advantage ofindicating why these rifts disappear, or seem to disappear, atcertain seasons."
"And for what reason?"
"For the reason that the trees become invisible when they losetheir leaves, and visible again when they regain them."
"Your explanation is ingenious, my dear companion," repliedBarbicane, "but inadmissible."
"Why?"
"Because, so to speak, there are no seasons on the moon's surface,and that, consequently, the phenomena of vegetation of which youspeak cannot occur."
Indeed, the slight obliquity of the lunar axis keeps the sun atan almost equal height in every latitude. Above the equatorialregions the radiant orb almost invariably occupies the zenith,and does not pass the limits of the horizon in the polarregions; thus, according to each region, there reigns aperpetual winter, spring, summer, or autumn, as in the planetJupiter, whose axis is but little inclined upon its orbit.
What origin do they attribute to these rifts? That is aquestion difficult to solve. They are certainly anterior to theformation of craters and circles, for several have introducedthemselves by breaking through their circular ramparts. Thus itmay be that, contemporary with the later geological epochs, theyare due to the expansion of natural forces.
But the projectile had now attained the fortieth degree of lunarlatitude, at a distance not exceeding 40 miles. Through theglasses objects appeared to be only four miles distant.
At this point, under their feet, rose Mount Helicon, 1,520 feethigh, and round about the left rose moderate elevations,enclosing a small portion of the "Sea of Rains," under the nameof the Gulf of Iris. The terrestrial atmosphere would have tobe one hundred and seventy times more transparent than it is,to allow astronomers to make perfect observations on the moon'ssurface; but in the void in which the projectile floated nofluid interposed itself between the eye of the observer andthe object observed. And more, Barbicane found himself carriedto a greater distance than the most powerful telescopes hadever done before, either that of Lord Rosse or that o
f theRocky Mountains. He was, therefore, under extremely favorableconditions for solving that great question of the habitabilityof the moon; but the solution still escaped him; he coulddistinguish nothing but desert beds, immense plains, and towardthe north, arid mountains. Not a work betrayed the hand of man;not a ruin marked his course; not a group of animals was to beseen indicating life, even in an inferior degree. In no partwas there life, in no part was there an appearance of vegetation.Of the three kingdoms which share the terrestrial globe betweenthem, one alone was represented on the lunar and that the mineral.
"Ah, indeed!" said Michel Ardan, a little out of countenance;"then you see no one?"
"No," answered Nicholl; "up to this time, not a man, not ananimal, not a tree! After all, whether the atmosphere has takenrefuge at the bottom of cavities, in the midst of the circles,or even on the opposite face of the moon, we cannot decide."
"Besides," added Barbicane, "even to the most piercing eye a mancannot be distinguished farther than three and a half miles off;so that, if there are any Selenites, they can see our projectile,but we cannot see them."
Toward four in the morning, at the height of the fiftiethparallel, the distance was reduced to 300 miles. To the leftran a line of mountains capriciously shaped, lying in thefull light. To the right, on the contrary, lay a black hollowresembling a vast well, unfathomable and gloomy, drilled intothe lunar soil.
This hole was the "Black Lake"; it was Pluto, a deep circlewhich can be conveniently studied from the earth, between thelast quarter and the new moon, when the shadows fall from westto east.
This black color is rarely met with on the surface ofthe satellite. As yet it has only been recognized in the depthsof the circle of Endymion, to the east of the "Cold Sea," in thenorthern hemisphere, and at the bottom of Grimaldi's circle, onthe equator, toward the eastern border of the orb.
Pluto is an annular mountain, situated in 51@ north latitude,and 9@ east longitude. Its circuit is forty-seven miles longand thirty-two broad.
Barbicane regretted that they were not passing directly abovethis vast opening. There was an abyss to fathom, perhaps somemysterious phenomenon to surprise; but the projectile's coursecould not be altered. They must rigidly submit. They could notguide a balloon, still less a projectile, when once enclosedwithin its walls. Toward five in the morning the northernlimits of the "Sea of Rains" was at length passed. The mountsof Condamine and Fontenelle remained-- one on the right, theother on the left. That part of the disc beginning with 60@ wasbecoming quite mountainous. The glasses brought them to withintwo miles, less than that separating the summit of Mont Blancfrom the level of the sea. The whole region was bristling withspikes and circles. Toward the 60@ Philolaus stood predominantat a height of 5,550 feet with its elliptical crater, and seenfrom this distance, the disc showed a very fantastical appearance.Landscapes were presented to the eye under very differentconditions from those on the earth, and also very inferior to them.
The moon having no atmosphere, the consequences arising fromthe absence of this gaseous envelope have already been shown.No twilight on her surface; night following day and day followingnight with the suddenness of a lamp which is extinguished orlighted amid profound darkness-- no transition from cold toheat, the temperature falling in an instant from boiling pointto the cold of space.
Another consequence of this want of air is that absolutedarkness reigns where the sun's rays do not penetrate.That which on earth is called diffusion of light, that luminousmatter which the air holds in suspension, which creates thetwilight and the daybreak, which produces the _umbrae_ and_penumbrae_, and all the magic of _chiaro-oscuro_, does notexist on the moon. Hence the harshness of contrasts, whichonly admit of two colors, black and white. If a Selenitewere to shade his eyes from the sun's rays, the sky would seemabsolutely black, and the stars would shine to him as on thedarkest night. Judge of the impression produced on Barbicaneand his three friends by this strange scene! Their eyeswere confused. They could no longer grasp the respectivedistances of the different plains. A lunar landscape withoutthe softening of the phenomena of _chiaro-oscuro_ could not berendered by an earthly landscape painter; it would be spots ofink on a white page-- nothing more.
This aspect was not altered even when the projectile, at theheight of 80@, was only separated from the moon by a distanceof fifty miles; nor even when, at five in the morning, itpassed at less than twenty-five miles from the mountain ofGioja, 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 wouldnot strike her, if only at the north pole, the brilliant archof which was so distinctly visible on the black sky.
Michel Ardan wanted to open one of the scuttles and throwhimself on to the moon's surface! A very useless attempt; forif the projectile could not attain any point whatever of thesatellite, Michel, carried along by its motion, could not attainit either.
At that moment, at six o'clock, the lunar pole appeared. The disconly presented to the travelers' gaze one half brilliantly lit up,while the other disappeared in the darkness. Suddenly theprojectile passed the line of demarcation between intense lightand absolute darkness, and was plunged in profound night!
