718 THE UNIVERSE. 



but at present men are disposed to look upon them as only 

 immense plains. The first astronomers gave them names 

 full of poetry. There was the Sea of Tranquillity, the Sea 

 of Clouds, the Sea of Nectar, the Ocean of Tempests, and 

 the Sea of Serenity. 



The rocky and shattered soil of our satellite is perfectly 

 bare ; not a blade of grass grows there, not a flower opens. 

 Totally deprived of water and air, life is an impossibility. 

 A threefold death would overtake the least animal that hap- 

 pened to alight there ; a squirrel would perish of hunger, 

 thirst, and asphyxia ! In these cold and horrid realms of 

 the moon everything is plunged in torpor and silence ; the 

 echoes are mute, nothing alters the dull monotony of the 

 heavens, and the breath of a zephyr never plays round the 

 summits of the ru^o-ed mountains. 



By means of our instruments, which have now been 

 brought to so great perfection, we can pry into the mi- 

 nutest details of our satellite, and examine them with as 

 much accuracy as if it were some distant view on earth ; 

 hence we can, to a certain extent, make out its geological 

 disposition. The precision of our glasses has been carried 

 to such a pitch that we could with them easily perceive 

 large buildings, if any existed, on the lunar surface ; we 

 could even make out troops of animals moving about. It 

 would, it is true, be impossible to perceive one of its inhab- 

 itants traversing the valleys of its silver crescent; but if 

 the much-spoken-of Selenites existed, we should certainly 

 perceive their movements when they were collected into 

 dense masses. According to Humboldt, however, there is 

 only a noiseless, silent desert there. 



