ial. The lunar ones form 1/70 of the diameter of the moon,
and the terrestrial only form 1/140 of the diameter of the earth. For a
terrestrial mountain to attain the relative proportions of a lunar
mountain, its perpendicular height ought to be 6-1/2 leagues. Now the
highest is not four miles.

Thus, then, to proceed by comparison, the chain of the Himalayas counts
three peaks higher than the lunar ones, Mount Everest, Kunchinjuga, and
Dwalagiri. Mounts Doerfel and Leibnitz, on the moon, are as high as
Jewahir in the same chain. Newton, Casatus, Curtius, Short, Tycho,
Clavius, Blancanus, Endymion, the principal summits of Caucasus and the
Apennines, are higher than Mont Blanc. The mountains equal to Mont Blanc
are Moret, Theophylus, and Catharnia; to Mount Rosa, Piccolomini,
Werner, and Harpalus; to Mount Cervin, Macrobus, Eratosthenes,
Albateque, and Delambre; to the Peak of Teneriffe, Bacon, Cysatus,
Philolaus, and the Alps; to Mount Perdu, in the Pyrenees, Roemer and
Boguslawski; to Etna, Hercules, Atlas, and Furnerius.

Such are the points of comparison that allow the appreciation of the
altitude of lunar mountains. Now the trajectory followed by the
projectile dragged it precisely towards that mountainous region of the
southern hemisphere where rise the finest specimens of lunar orography.

CHAPTER XVII.

TYCHO.

At 6 p.m. the projectile passed the South Pole at less than thirty
miles, a distance equal to that already reached at the North Pole. The
elliptical curve was, therefore, being rigorously described.

At that moment the travellers re-entered the beneficent sunshine. They
saw once more the stars moving slowly from east to west. The radiant orb
was saluted with a triple hurrah. With its light came also its heat,
which soon pierced the middle walls. The windows resumed their
accustomed transparency. Their "layer of ice" melted as if by
enchantment. The gas was immediately extinguished by way of economy. The
air apparatus alone was to consume its habitual quantity.

"Ah!" said Nicholl, "sunshine is good! How impatiently after their long
nights the Selenites must await the reappearance of the orb of day!"

"Yes," answered Michel Ardan, "imbibing, as it were, the brilliant
ether, light and heat, all life is in them."

At that moment the bottom of the projectile moved slightly from the
lunar surface in order to describe a rather long elliptical orbit. From
that point, if the earth had been full,