presence of inhabitants upon
this part of the moon.

But along the shore of the old sea, just where the so-called Bay of
Rainbows separates itself from the abyss of the Sea of Showers, there
were found some stratified rocks in which the fascinated eyes of the
explorer beheld the clear imprint of a gigantic human foot, measuring
five feet in length from toe to heel.

The most minute search failed to reveal another trace of the presence of
the ancient giant, who had left the impress of his foot in the wet sands
of the beach here so many millions of years ago that even the
imagination of the geologists shrank from the task of attempting to fix
the precise period.

Around this gigantic footprint gathered most of the scientific members
of the expedition, wearing their oddly shaped air-tight suits, connected
with telephonic wires, and the spectacle, but for the impressiveness of
the discovery, would have been laughable in the extreme. Bending over
the mark in the rock, nodding their heads together, pointing with their
awkwardly accoutered arms, they looked like an assemblage of
antidiluvian monsters collected around their prey. Their disappointment
over the fact that no other marks of anything resembling human
habitation could be discovered was very great.

Still this footprint in itself was quite sufficient, as they all
declared, to settle the question of the former habitation of the moon,
and it would serve for the production of many a learned volume after
their return to earth, even if no further discoveries should be made in
other parts of the lunar world.

It was the hope of making such other discoveries that led to the
dispatch of the other various expeditions which I have already named. I
was chosen to accompany the car that was going to Aristarchus, because,
as every one who had viewed the moon from the earth was aware, there was
something very mysterious about that mountain. I knew that it was a
crater nearly thirty miles in diameter and very deep, although its floor
was plainly visible.

What rendered it remarkable was the fact that the floor and the walls of
the crater, particularly on the inner side, glowed with a marvelous
brightness which rendered them almost blinding when viewed with a
powerful telescope.

So bright were they, indeed, that the eye was unable to see many of the
details which the telescope would have made visible but for the flood of
light which poured from the mountains. Sir William Her