bus? The golden clasp of her
floating robes? The blazing head of the great bolt that rivets the lunar
hemispheres in union inseverable? Or cans't thou have been some errant
bolide, which missing its way, butted blindly against the lunar face,
and there stuck fast, like a Minie ball mashed against a cast-iron
target? Alas! nobody knows. Not even Barbican is able to penetrate thy
mystery. But one thing _I_ know. Thy dazzling glare so sore my eyes hath
made that longer on thy light to gaze I do not dare. Captain, have you
any smoked glass?"

In spite of this anti-climax, Ardan's companions could hardly consider
his utterings either as ridiculous or over enthusiastic. They could
easily excuse his excitement on the subject. And so could we, if we only
remember that _Tycho_, though nearly a quarter of a million miles
distant, is such a luminous point on the lunar disc, that almost any
moonlit night it can be easily perceived by the unaided terrestrial eye.
What then must have been its splendor in the eyes of our travellers
whose telescopes brought it actually four thousand times nearer! No
wonder that with smoked glasses, they endeavored to soften off its
effulgent glare! Then in hushed silence, or at most uttering at
intervals a few interjections expressive of their intense admiration,
they remained for some time completely engrossed in the overwhelming
spectacle. For the time being, every sentiment, impression, thought,
feeling on their part, was concentrated in the eye, just as at other
times under violent excitement every throb of our life is concentrated
in the heart.

_Tycho_ belongs to the system of lunar craters that is called
_radiating_, like _Aristarchus_ or _Copernicus_, which had been already
seen and highly admired by our travellers at their first approach to the
Moon. But it is decidedly the most remarkable and conspicuous of them
all. It occupies the great focus of disruption, whence it sends out
great streaks thousands of miles in length; and it gives the most
unmistakable evidence of the terribly eruptive nature of those forces
that once shattered the Moon's solidified shell in this portion of the
lunar surface.

Situated in the southern latitude of 43 deg. by an eastern longitude of 12 deg.,
_Tycho's_ crater, somewhat elliptical in shape, is 54 miles in diameter
and upwards of 16,000 feet in depth. Its lofty ramparts are buttressed
by other mountains, Mont Blancs in size, all grouped around it, and all