Popular Science Monthly 



259 



The Valley of the Alps. This flat-bottomed valley is over 70 miles long and is about 6 miles 

 wide at its broadest part. It is bordered by majestic and precipitous mountains, the peaks of 

 which attain an altitude of 9,000 feet above the valley. Rugged hills in the immediate vicinity, 

 as shown in the foreground, indicate piles of slag. A scene of dreary desolation, even with the 

 noon sun shedding its overpowering light, although at some very remote epoch one of incon- 

 ceivable commotion. The entire region appears to have passed through the fiery furnace 



which bear every evidence of having passed 

 through a fiery ordeal. The entire surface 

 is one of dreadful contrast; the dazzling 

 brightness of the landscape compared with 

 the hard black shadows; the black sky, 

 even at noon, with the sun shedding a 

 ghastly overpowering light; these condi- 

 tions, together with no trace of life, form a 

 scene of dreary desolation, but nevertheless 

 one of sublime grandeur. 



The Deathly Silence of the Moon 



Although the sun pours his heat upon the 

 surface throughout the long lunar day, 

 which comprises over three hundred of our 

 days, yet the rocks remain too cold to 

 touch with safety. Everywhere there 

 reigns the silence of death. Occasional 

 landslides, cracking of the surface and 

 shrinkage commotions, dislocation of piled 

 up volcanic debris, all occur without an 

 attendant sound. Because there is no air 



we cannot hear. Ten thousand volleys 

 might be fired instantaneously, with a 

 resultant vibration of the ground, but the 

 prevailing silence would remain unbroken. 

 It is indeed a world possessing conditions 

 just the reverse of our own. Imagine there 

 to be no water, no air, nothing to sustain 

 life for a single instant! 



We see a world of mystery and destruc- 

 tion, riddled as is its surface with volcanic 

 formations representing primeval forces, 

 but maintaining their original charac- 

 teristics and freshness owing to the absence 

 of disintegrating elements. Nevertheless, 

 it teaches one grand lesson in that it "exalts 

 our estimation of this peopled globe of 

 ours," writes Carpenter, "by showing us 

 that all planetary worlds have not been 

 deemed worthy to become the habitation of 

 intelligent beings." So we mentally "come 

 back to earth," perfectly content to have 

 taken only an optical flight to the moon. 



