ugnance in accepting
the idea that the Moon was no better than a heap of cinders and ashes;
"why, look there! If those are not as neat a set of the ruins of an
abandoned city as ever I saw, I should like to know what they are!"

[Illustration: ONCE MORE THE PIPES OF AN AQUEDUCT.]

He pointed to some very remarkable rocky formations in the
neighborhood of _Short_, a ring mountain rising to an altitude
considerably higher than that of Mont Blanc. Even Barbican and M'Nicholl
could detect some regularity and semblance of order in the arrangement
of these rocks, but this, of course, they looked on as a mere freak of
nature, like the Lurlei Rock, the Giant's Causeway, or the Old Man of
the Franconia Mountains. Ardan, however, would not accept such an easy
mode of getting rid of a difficulty.

"See the ruins on that bluff," he exclaimed; "those steep sides must
have been washed by a great river in the prehistoric times. That was the
fortress. Farther down lay the city. There are the dismantled ramparts;
why, there's the very coping of a portico still intact! Don't you see
three broken pillars lying beside their pedestals? There! a little to
the left of those arches that evidently once bore the pipes of an
aqueduct! You don't see them? Well, look a little to the right, and
there is something that you can see! As I'm a living man I have no
difficulty in discerning the gigantic butments of a great bridge that
formerly spanned that immense river!"

Did he really see all this? To this day he affirms stoutly that he did,
and even greater wonders besides. His companions, however, without
denying that he had good grounds for his assertion on this subject or
questioning the general accuracy of his observations, content themselves
with saying that the reason why they had failed to discover the
wonderful city, was that Ardan's telescope was of a strange and
peculiar construction. Being somewhat short-sighted, he had had it
manufactured expressly for his own use, but it was of such singular
power that his companions could not use it without hurting their eyes.

But, whether the ruins were real or not, the moments were evidently too
precious to be lost in idle discussion. The great city of the Selenites
soon disappeared on the remote horizon, and, what was of far greater
importance, the distance of the Projectile from the Moon's disc began to
increase so sensibly that the smaller details of the surface were soon
lost in a confused mas