most piercing sight a man is
not visible at a distance of more than four miles. Therefore if there
are any Selenites they can see our projectile, but we cannot see them."

About 11 a.m., at the altitude of the 50th parallel, the distance was
reduced to 300 miles. On the left rose the capricious outlines of a
chain of mountains, outlined in full light. Towards the right, on the
contrary, was a large black hole like a vast dark and bottomless well
bored in the lunar soil.

That hole was the Black Lake, or Pluto, a deep circle from which the
earth could be conveniently studied between the last quarter and the new
moon, when the shadows are thrown from west to east.

This black colour is rarely met with on the surface of the satellite. It
has, as yet, only been seen in the depths of the circle of Endymion, to
the east of the Cold Sea, in the northern hemisphere, and at the bottom
of the circle of Grimaldi upon the equator towards the eastern border of
the orb.

Pluto is a circular mountain, situated in north lat. 51 deg. and east long.
9 deg.. Its circle is fifty miles long and thirty wide. Barbicane regretted
not passing perpendicularly over this vast opening. There was an abyss
to see, perhaps some mysterious phenomenon to become acquainted with.
But the course of the projectile could not be guided. There was nothing
to do but submit. A balloon could not be guided, much less a projectile
when you are inside.

About 5 a.m. the northern limit of the Sea of Rains was at last passed.
Mounts La Condamine and Fontenelle remained, the one on the left, the
other on the right. That part of the disc, starting from the 60th
degree, became absolutely mountainous. The telescopes brought it to
within one league, an inferior distance to that between the summit of
Mont Blanc and the sea level. All this region was bristling with peaks
and amphitheatres. Mount Philolaus rose about the 70th degree to a
height of 3,700 metres, opening an elliptical crater sixteen leagues
long and four wide.

Then the disc, seen from that distance, presented an exceedingly strange
aspect. The landscapes were very different to earthly ones, and also
very inferior.

The moon having no atmosphere, this absence of vaporous covering had
consequences already pointed out. There is no twilight on its surface,
night following day and day following night, with the suddenness of a
lamp extinguished or lighted in profound darkness. There is no
transition from c