ing the accumulated results of ages of
undisturbed progress, but on the moon these effects have been
transcendent. The story of the tremendous disaster that overtook the
moon is partly written in its giant volcanoes. Although it may be true,
as some maintain, that there is yet volcanic action going on upon the
lunar surface, it is evident that such action must be insignificant in
comparison with that which took place ages ago.

There is a spot in the western hemisphere of the moon, on the border of
a placid bay or "sea," that I can never look at without a feeling of awe
and almost of shrinking. There, within a space about 250 miles in length
by 100 in width, is an exhibition of the most terrifying effects of
volcanic energy that the eye of man can anywhere behold. Three immense
craters--Theophilus, 64 miles across and 3-1/2 miles deep; Cyrillus, 60
miles across and 15,000 feet deep; and Catharina, 70 miles across and
from 8,000 to 16,000 feet deep--form an interlinked chain of mountain
rings, ridges, precipices, chasms, and bottomless pits that take away
one's breath.

But when the first impression of astonishment and dismay produced by
this overwhelming spectacle has somewhat abated, the thoughtful observer
will note that here the moon is telling him a part of her wonderful
story, depicted in characters so plain that he needs no instruction in
order to decipher their meaning. He will observe that this ruin was not
all wrought at once or simultaneously. Theophilus, the crater-mountain
at the northwestern end of the chain, whose bottom lies deepest of all,
is the youngest of these giants, though the most imposing. For a
distance of forty miles the lofty wall of Theophilus has piled itself
upon the ruins of the wall of Cyrillus, and the circumference of the
circle of its tremendous crater has been forcibly thrust within the
original rim of the more ancient crater, which was thus rudely compelled
to make room for its more vigorous rival and successor.

The observer will also notice that Catharina, the huge pit at the
southeastern end of the chain, bears evidence of yet greater age. Its
original walls, fragments of which still stand in broken grandeur,
towering to a height of 16,000 feet, have, throughout the greater part
of their circuit, been riddled by the outbreak of smaller craters, and
torn asunder and thrown down on all sides.

In the vast enclosure that was originally the floor of the
crater-mountain Catharina,