and the air travels
through the great sponge of galleries, in accordance with simple physical
laws. The caverns of the moon, on the whole, are very windy places. As the
sunlight comes round the moon the air in the outer galleries on that side
is heated, its pressure increases, some flows out on the exterior and
mingles with the evaporating air of the craters (where the plants remove
its carbonic acid), while the greater portion flows round through the
galleries to replace the shrinking air of the cooling side that the
sunlight has left. There is, therefore, a constant eastward breeze in the
air of the outer galleries, and an upflow during the lunar day up the
shafts, complicated, of course, very greatly by the varying shape of the
galleries, and the ingenious contrivances of the Selenite mind....

Chapter 24

The Natural History of the Selenites

The messages of Cavor from the sixth up to the sixteenth are for the most
part so much broken, and they abound so in repetitions, that they scarcely
form a consecutive narrative. They will be given in full, of course, in
the scientific report, but here it will be far more convenient to continue
simply to abstract and quote as in the former chapter. We have subjected
every word to a keen critical scrutiny, and my own brief memories and
impressions of lunar things have been of inestimable help in interpreting
what would otherwise have been impenetrably dark. And, naturally, as
living beings, our interest centres far more upon the strange community of
lunar insects in which he was living, it would seem, as an honoured guest
than upon the mere physical condition of their world.

I have already made it clear, I think, that the Selenites I saw resembled
man in maintaining the erect attitude, and in having four limbs, and I
have compared the general appearance of their heads and the jointing of
their limbs to that of insects. I have mentioned, too, the peculiar
consequence of the smaller gravitation of the moon on their fragile
slightness. Cavor confirms me upon all these points. He calls them
"animals," though of course they fall under no division of the
classification of earthly creatures, and he points out "the insect type of
anatomy had, fortunately for men, never exceeded a relatively very small
size on earth." The largest terrestrial insects, living or extinct, do
not, as a matter of fact, measure six inches in length; "but here, against
the lesser gravitation