they could see very little, but far to the left, on the 20th
parallel, they could discern the vast crater of _Bullialdus_, 9,000
feet deep. On the right, they had just caught a glimpse of _Purbach_, a
depressed valley almost square in shape with a round crater in the
centre, when Ardan suddenly cried out:

"A Railroad!"

And, sure enough, right under them, a little northeast of _Purbach_, the
travellers easily distinguished a long line straight and black, really
not unlike a railroad cutting through a low hilly country.

This, Barbican explained, was of course no railway, but a steep cliff,
at least 1,000 feet high, casting a very deep shadow, and probably the
result of the caving in of the surface on the eastern edge.

Then they saw the immense crater of _Arzachel_ and in its midst a cone
mountain shining with dazzling splendor. A little north of this, they
could detect the outlines of another crater, _Alphonse_, at least 70
miles in diameter. Close to it they could easily distinguish the immense
crater or, as some observers call it, Ramparted Plain, _Ptolemy_, so
well known to lunar astronomers, occupying, as it does, such a favorable
position near the centre of the Moon, and having a diameter fully, in
one direction at least, 120 miles long.

The travellers were now in about the same latitude as that at which they
had at first approached the Moon, and it was here that they began most
unquestionably to leave her. They looked and looked, readjusting their
glasses, but the details were becoming more and more difficult to catch.
The reliefs grew more and more blurred and the outlines dimmer and
dimmer. Even the great mountain profiles began to fade away, the
dazzling colors to grow duller, the jet black shadows greyer, and the
general effect mistier.

At last, the distance had become so great that, of this lunar world so
wonderful, so fantastic, so weird, so mysterious, our travellers by
degrees lost even the consciousness, and their sensations, lately so
vivid, grew fainter and fainter, until finally they resembled those of a
man who is suddenly awakened from a peculiarly strange and impressive
dream.

CHAPTER XIX.

IN EVERY FIGHT, THE IMPOSSIBLE WINS.

No matter what we have been accustomed to, it is sad to bid it farewell
forever. The glimpse of the Moon's wondrous world imparted to Barbican
and his companions had been, like that of the Promised Land to Moses on
Mount Pisgah, only a distant and a da