eas, the Sea of Humboldt, _Mare Humboldtianum_, with a surface of
6,500 square leagues, and the Southern Sea, _Mare Australe_, with a
surface of 26,000.

In the centre of the lunar disc, across the equator and on the zero
meridian, lies the centre gulf, _Sinus Medii_, a sort of hyphen between
the two hemispheres.

Thus appeared to the eyes of Nicholl and Barbicane the surface always
visible of the earth's satellite. When they added up these different
figures they found that the surface of this hemisphere measured
4,738,160 square leagues, 3,317,600 of which go for volcanoes, chains of
mountains, amphitheatres, islands--in a word, all that seems to form the
solid portion of the globe--and 1,410,400 leagues for the seas, lake,
marshes, and all that seems to form the liquid portion, all of which was
perfectly indifferent to the worthy Michel.

It will be noticed that this hemisphere is thirteen and a-half times
smaller than the terrestrial hemisphere. And yet upon it selenographers
have already counted 50,000 craters. It is a rugged surface worthy of
the unpoetical qualification of "green cheese" which the English have
given it.

When Barbicane pronounced this disobliging name Michel Ardan gave a
bound.

"That is how the Anglo-Saxons of the 19th century treat the beautiful
Diana, the blonde Phoebe, the amiable Isis, the charming Astarte, the
Queen of Night, the daughter of Latona and Jupiter, the younger sister
of the radiant Apollo!"

CHAPTER XII.

OROGRAPHICAL DETAILS.

It has already been pointed out that the direction followed by the
projectile was taking us towards the northern hemisphere of the moon.
The travellers were far from that central point which they ought to have
touched if their trajectory had not suffered an irremediable deviation.

It was half-past twelve at night. Barbicane then estimated his distance
at 1,400 kilometres, a distance rather greater than the length of the
lunar radius, and which must diminish as he drew nearer the North Pole.
The projectile was then not at the altitude of the equator, but on the
tenth parallel, and from that latitude carefully observed on the map as
far as the Pole, Barbicane and his two companions were able to watch the
moon under the most favourable circumstances.

In fact, by using telescopes, this distance of 1,400 kilometres was
reduced to fourteen miles, or four and a-half leagues. The telescope of
the Rocky Mountains brought the moon still neare