s respected at present. Michel Ardan
was right when he compared this map to a "map of tenderness," drawn up
by Scudery or Cyrano de Bergerac.

"Only," added he, "it is no longer the map of sentiment like that of the
18th century; it is the map of life, clearly divided into two parts, the
one feminine, the other masculine. To the women, the right hemisphere;
to the men, the left!"

When he spoke thus Michel made his prosaic companions shrug their
shoulders. Barbicane and Nicholl looked at the lunar map from another
point of view to that of their imaginative friend. However, their
imaginative friend had some reason on his side. Judge if he had not.

In the left hemisphere stretches the "Sea of Clouds," where human reason
is so often drowned. Not far off appears the "Sea of Rains," fed by all
the worries of existence. Near lies the "Sea of Tempests," where man
struggles incessantly against his too-often victorious passions. Then,
exhausted by deceptions, treasons, infidelities, and all the procession
of terrestrial miseries, what does he find at the end of his career? The
vast "Sea of Humours," scarcely softened by some drops from the waters
of the "Gulf of Dew!" Clouds, rain, tempests, humours, does the life of
man contain aught but these? and is it not summed up in these four
words?

The right-hand hemisphere dedicated to "the women" contains smaller
seas, the significant names of which agree with every incident of
feminine existence. There is the "Sea of Serenity," over which bends the
young maiden, and the "Lake of Dreams," which reflects her back a happy
future. The "Sea of Nectar," with its waves of tenderness and breezes of
love! The "Sea of Fecundity," the "Sea of Crises," and the "Sea of
Vapours," the dimensions of which are, perhaps, too restricted, and
lastly, that vast "Sea of Tranquillity" where all false passions, all
useless dreams, all unassuaged desires are absorbed, and the waves of
which flow peacefully into the "Lake of Death!"

What a strange succession of names! What a singular division of these
two hemispheres of the moon, united to one another like man and woman,
and forming a sphere of life, carried through space. And was not the
imaginative Michel right in thus interpreting the fancies of the old
astronomers?

But whilst his imagination thus ran riot on the "seas," his grave
companions were looking at things more geographically. They were
learning this new world by heart. They were measurin