s things, and therefore a
world, so wonderfully inhabitable, _must_ of necessity have had
inhabitants."

"I like _of necessity_ too," said Ardan, who could never keep still; "I
always did, when I felt my arguments to be what you call a little
shaky."

"But, my dear Captain," here observed Barbican, "have you taken into
consideration some of the peculiarities of our Satellite which are
decidedly opposed to the development of vegetable and animal existence?
Those nights and days, for instance, 354 hours long?"

"I have considered them all," answered the brave Captain. "Days and
nights of such an enormous length would at the present time, I grant,
give rise to variations in temperature altogether intolerable to any
ordinary organization. But things were quite different in the era
alluded to. At that time, the atmosphere enveloped the Moon in a gaseous
mantle, and the vapors took the shape of clouds. By the screen thus
formed by the hand of nature, the heat of the solar rays was tempered
and the nocturnal radiation retarded. Light too, as well as heat, could
be modified, tempered, and _genialized_ if I may use the expression, by
the air. This produced a healthy counterpoise of forces, which, now that
the atmosphere has completely disappeared, of course exists no longer.
Besides--friend Ardan, you will excuse me for telling you something new,
something that will surprise you--"

--"Surprise me, my dear boy, fire away surprising me!" cried Ardan. "I
like dearly to be surprised. All I regret is that you scientists have
surprised me so much already that I shall never have a good, hearty,
genuine surprise again!"

--"I am most firmly convinced," continued the Captain, hardly waiting
for Ardan to finish, "that, at the period of the Moon's occupancy by
living creatures, her days and nights were by no means 354 hours long."

"Well! if anything could surprise me," said Ardan quickly, "such an
assertion as that most certainly would. On what does the honorable
gentleman base his _most firm conviction_?"

"We know," replied the Captain, "that the reason of the Moon's present
long day and night is the exact equality of the periods of her rotation
on her axis and of her revolution around the Earth. When she has turned
once around the Earth, she has turned once around herself. Consequently,
her back is turned to the Sun during one-half of the month; and her face
during the other half. Now, I don't believe that this state of things