lunar surface beneath the travellers, as far as they could see in
all directions, now bristled with mountains, crags, and peaks. Indeed,
at the 70th parallel the "Seas" or plains seem to have come to an end.
The spy-glasses now brought the surface to within about three miles, a
distance less than that between the hotel at Chamouni and the summit of
Mont Blanc. To the left, they had no difficulty in distinguishing the
ramparts of _Philolaus_, about 12,000 feet high, but though the crater
had a diameter of nearly thirty miles, the black shadows prevented the
slightest sign of its interior from being seen. The Sun was now sinking
very low, and the illuminated surface of the Moon was reduced to a
narrow rim.

By this time, too, the bird's eye view to which the observations had so
far principally confined, decidedly altered its character. They could
now look back at the lunar mountains that they had been just sailing
over--a view somewhat like that enjoyed by a tourist standing on the
summit of Mt. St. Gothard as he sees the sun setting behind the peaks of
the Bernese Oberland. The lunar landscapes however, though seen under
these new and ever varying conditions, "hardly gained much by the
change," according to Ardan's expression. On the contrary, they looked,
if possible, more dreary and inhospitable than before.

The Moon having no atmosphere, the benefit of this gaseous envelope in
softening off and nicely shading the approaches of light and darkness,
heat and cold, is never felt on her surface. There, no twilight ever
softly ushers in the brilliant sun, or sweetly heralds the near approach
of night's dark shadow. Night follows day, and day night, with the
startling suddenness of a match struck or a lamp extinguished in a
cavern. Nor can it present any gradual transition from either extreme of
temperature. Hot jumps to cold, and cold jumps to hot. A moment after a
glacial midnight, it is a roasting noon. Without an instant's warning
the temperature falls from 212 deg. Fahrenheit to the icy winter of
interstellar space. The surface is all dazzling glare, or pitchy gloom.
Wherever the direct rays of the sun do not fall, darkness reigns
supreme. What we call diffused light on Earth, the grateful result of
refraction, the luminous matter held in suspension by the air, the
mother of our dawns and our dusks, of our blushing mornings and our dewy
eyes, of our shades, our penumbras, our tints and all the other magical
effects o