Observatory by M.P. Puiseux.

(Page 197)]

The moon is just too far off to allow us to see the actual detail on
her surface with the naked eye. When thus viewed she merely displays a
patchy appearance,[15] and the imaginary forms which her darker markings
suggest to the fancy are popularly expressed by the term "Man in the
Moon." An examination of her surface with very moderate optical aid is,
however, quite a revelation, and the view we then get is not easily
comparable to what we see with the unaided eye.

Even with an ordinary opera-glass, an observer will be able to note a
good deal of detail upon the lunar disc. If it be his first observation
of the kind, he cannot fail to be struck by the fact to which we have
just made allusion, namely, the great change which the moon appears to
undergo when viewed with magnifying power. "Cain and his Dog," the "Man
in the Moon gathering sticks," or whatever indeed his fancy was wont to
conjure up from the lights and shades upon the shining surface, have now
completely disappeared; and he sees instead a silvery globe marked here
and there with extensive dark areas, and pitted all over with
crater-like formations (see Plate VIII., p. 196). The dark areas retain
even to the present day their ancient name of "seas," for Galileo and
the early telescopic observers believed them to be such, and they are
still catalogued under the mystic appellations given to them in the long
ago; as, for instance, "Sea of Showers," "Bay of Rainbows," "Lake of
Dreams."[16] The improved telescopes of later times showed, however,
that they were not really seas (there is no water on the moon), but
merely areas of darker material.

The crater-like formations above alluded to are the "lunar mountains." A
person examining the moon for the first time with telescopic aid, will
perhaps not at once grasp the fact that his view of lunar mountains must
needs be what is called a "bird's-eye" one, namely, a view from above,
like that from a balloon and that he cannot, of course, expect to see
them from the side, as he does the mountains upon the earth. But once he
has realised this novel point of view, he will no doubt marvel at the
formations which lie scattered as it were at his feet. The type of lunar
mountain is indeed in striking contrast to the terrestrial type. On our
earth the range-formation is supreme; on the moon the crater-formation
is the rule, and is so-called from analogy to our volcanoes. A typica