that is more than enough to flood the
lunar landscape with a dazzling intensity of light, of which we have no
counterpart on Earth. No atmosphere refracts it, no hazy screen softens
it, no enveloping vapor absorbs it, no obstructing medium colors it. It
breaks on the eye, harsh, white, dazzling, blinding, like the electric
light seen a few yards off. As the hours wear away, the more blasting
becomes the glare; and the higher he rises in the black sky, but slowly,
slowly. It takes him seven of our days to reach the meridian. By that
time the heat has increased from an arctic temperature to double the
boiling water point, from 250 deg. below zero to 500 deg. above it, or the point
at which tin melts. Subjected to these extremes, the glassy rocks crack,
shiver and crumble away; enormous land slides occur; peaks topple over;
and tons of debris, crashing down the mountains, are swallowed up
forever in the yawing chasms of the bottomless craters."

"Bravo!" cried Ardan, clapping his hands softly: "our President is
sublime! He reminds me of the overture of _Guillaume Tell_!"

"Souvenir de Marston!" growled M'Nicholl.

"These phenomena," continued Barbican, heedless of interruption and his
voice betraying a slight glow of excitement, "these phenomena going on
without interruption from month to month, from year to year, from age to
age, from _eon_ to _eon_, have finally convinced me that--what?" he
asked his hearers, interrupting himself suddenly.

--"That the existence at the present time--" answered M'Nicholl.

--"Of either animal or vegetable life--" interrupted Ardan.

--"In the Moon is hardly possible!" cried both in one voice.

"Besides?" asked Barbican: "even if there _is_ any life--?"

--"That to live on the dark side would be much more inconvenient than on
the light side!" cried M'Nicholl promptly.

--"That there is no choice between them!" cried Ardan just as ready.
"For my part, I should think a residence on Mt. Erebus or in Grinnell
Land a terrestrial paradise in comparison to either. The _Earth shine_
might illuminate the light side of the Moon a little during the long
night, but for any practical advantage towards heat or life, it would be
perfectly useless!"

"But there is another serious difference between the two sides," said
Barbican, "in addition to those enumerated. The dark side is actually
more troubled with excessive variations of temperature than the light
one."

"That assertion of our worthy