r three-sevenths are, in all probability a world in every
respect exactly like the visible face--that is, arid, desert, dead. But
our travellers also knew that _pretty certain_ is far from _quite
certain_, and that arguing merely from analogy may enable you to give a
good guess, but can never lead you to an undoubted conclusion. What if
the atmosphere had really withdrawn to this dark face? And if air, why
not water? Would not this be enough to infuse life into the whole
continent? Why should not vegetation flourish on its plains, fish in its
seas, animals in its forests, and man in every one of its zones that
were capable of sustaining life? To these interesting questions, what a
satisfaction it would be to be able to answer positively one way or
another! For thousands of difficult problems a mere glimpse at this
hemisphere would be enough to furnish a satisfactory reply. How glorious
it would be to contemplate a realm on which the eye of man has never yet
rested!

Great, therefore, as you may readily conceive, was the depression of our
travellers' spirits, as they pursued their way, enveloped in a veil of
darkness the most profound. Still even then Ardan, as usual, formed
somewhat of an exception. Finding it impossible to see a particle of the
Lunar surface, he gave it up for good, and tried to console himself by
gazing at the stars, which now fairly blazed in the spangled heavens.
And certainly never before had astronomer enjoyed an opportunity for
gazing at the heavenly bodies under such peculiar advantages. How Fraye
of Paris, Chacornac of Lyons, and Father Secchi of Rome would have
envied him!

For, candidly and truly speaking, never before had mortal eye revelled
on such a scene of starry splendor. The black sky sparkled with lustrous
fires, like the ceiling of a vast hall of ebony encrusted with flashing
diamonds. Ardan's eye could take in the whole extent in an easy sweep
from the _Southern Cross_ to the _Little Bear_, thus embracing within
one glance not only the two polar stars of the present day, but also
_Campus_ and _Vega_, which, by reason of the _precession of the
Equinoxes_, are to be our polar stars 12,000 years hence. His
imagination, as if intoxicated, reeled wildly through these sublime
infinitudes and got lost in them. He forgot all about himself and all
about his companions. He forgot even the strangeness of the fate that
had sent them wandering through these forbidden regions, like a
bewildered