268 LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE. 



numbers, and command the poor planets to appear in 

 given places, threatening to deny their identity, if they 

 are not there within the minute. We are simple travel- 

 lers, and, I fear, would not disdain the aid of a beanstalk, 

 if we thought it the shortest road to heaven. 



Once on the moon, however, we are immediately struck 

 with awe and wonder at the strange landscapes that we 

 suspected already from below, even with unarmed eyes, 

 in the dark and light spots on the moon's disc. Now 

 the gray portions become plains, the light ones mountains. 

 That these brilliant spots are mountains, we know from 

 their shadows, which always fall on the side opposite the 

 sun, and which lengthen in precise proportion as the sun 

 sinks lower. The most dazzling points, however, are not 

 mountains but towering precipices, whose steep, smooth 

 sides reflect the light with greatest force. 



But how entirely different is this mountain scenery from 

 that of the Alps or the Andes ! Here we see no lofty, 

 snow-covered peaks, no long, pleasing ridges and lovely 

 valleys; not even the proud domes of the Cordilleras 

 with their steep terraces are here represented. The whole 

 surface of the moon is covered with circular walls, inclos- 

 ing deep, dark caverns, into which whole territories have 

 sunk with their hills and mountains. Some of these huge 

 abysses are more than fifty miles in diameter, others 

 spread still wider, but all are engirt at the top by great 

 walls of rock, which are serrated and often crowned by 

 lofty peaks. The smallest and most regular are called 

 craters, from their resemblance to the craters of the earth, 

 but the form is all that they have in common, Volca- 



