the development of which extends 150 leagues, and is yet inferior to
that of the great orographical movements of the earth. The Apennines run
along the eastern border of the Sea of Rains, and are continued on the
north by the Carpathians, the profile of which measures about 100
leagues.

The travellers could only catch a glimpse of the summit of these
Apennines which lie between west long. 10 deg. and east long. 16 deg.; but the
chain of the Carpathians was visible from 18 deg. to 30 deg. east long., and
they could see how they were distributed.

One hypothesis seemed to them very justifiable. Seeing that this chain
of the Carpathians was here and there circular in form and with high
peaks, they concluded that it anciently formed important amphitheatres.
These mountainous circles must have been broken up by the vast cataclysm
to which the Sea of Rains was due. These Carpathians looked then what
the amphitheatres of Purbach, Arzachel, and Ptolemy would if some
cataclysm were to throw down their left ramparts and transform them into
continuous chains. They present an average height of 3,200 metres, a
height comparable to certain of the Pyrenees. Their southern slopes fall
straight into the immense Sea of Rains.

About 2 a.m. Barbicane was at the altitude of the 20th lunar parallel,
not far from that little mountain, 1,559 metres high, which bears the
name of Pythias. The distance from the projectile to the moon was only
1,200 kilometres, brought by means of telescopes to two and a half
leagues.

The "Mare Imbrium" lay before the eyes of the travellers like an immense
depression of which the details were not very distinct. Near them on the
left rose Mount Lambert, the altitude of which is estimated at 1,813
metres, and farther on, upon the borders of the Ocean of Tempests, in
north lat. 23 deg. and east long. 29 deg., rose the shining mountain of Euler.
This mountain, which rises only 1,815 metres above the lunar surface,
has been the object of an interesting work by the astronomer Schroeter.
This _savant_, trying to find out the origin of the lunar mountains,
asked himself whether the volume of the crater always looked equal to
the volume of the ramparts that formed it. Now this he found to be
generally the case, and he hence concluded that a single eruption of
volcanic matter had sufficed to form these ramparts, for successive
eruptions would have destroyed the connection. Mount Euler alone was an
exception to this