hands. Together, they make a very cheap five-
shillings' worth of information and amusement,
if we may be allowed to apply the latter term to
speculations so disconnected from the world in
which we actually live.

With a moderate telescope, the observer can
compare what he sees in the sky with what is
mapped out on paper before him, and so can
study Lunar Topography bit by bit. For this
reason, the moon is drawn in the map as it is
seen through an astronomical (not a land)
telescope; namely, reversed. The North Pole is at
the bottom, and the East is to the left. To get
an exact idea how the moon would look if it
could be seen, so magnified, by the naked eye,
you have only to turn the map upside down. It
represents the moon at the full, although the
observations on which it is founded were taken
during the different phases which occur between
one new moon and the next. The full moon
being illuminated by the sun directly in front
of it, displays its mountains and circuses without
the projection of any shadow; their peaks and
outward edges appear bright white. In order
to give relief to the inequalities of the surface,
the moon has been portrayed as if seen during
her crescent period, when she receives the sun's
light from the right, and casts her shadows
towards the left. The name of Seas, improperly
given by ancient astronomers to the lunar
plains, has been retained. The chains of mountains
have names borrowed from those which
exist on earth; as the Pyrenees, the Apennines,
the Carpathians. The annular mountains, or
circuses (which are much more numerous), are
named after celebrated scientific men; as
Cassini, Tycho, Copernicus, Playfair. The elevation
of the highest mountains is calculated in mètres,
approximatively and in round numbers, measured
from the bottom of the internal cavity to the
top of the rampart.

Since the publication of the map and its
explanation, one of its authors, we regret to state,
has prematurely closed his mortal career at the
early age of forty-one. Henri Lecouturier was
the son of a general of the Empire, who, wounded
severely at Eylau, died young, leaving little
more behind him than an honourable name and
the title of baron. Brought up to the law, young
Lecouturier devoted himself entirely to science
instead, with an ardent and disinterested passion.
He loved knowledge for itself. He thirsted
after information, for information's sake alone,
not bestowing on his worldly interests even the
attention which common prudence required; nor
was he conscious yet of the great talent for clear
and methodical explanation which he afterwards
was found to possess. His small patrimony
was thus dwindled down to next to nothing. The
revolution of 1848 excited him to write a
political work, La Cosmosophie, now extremely
rare, which did him little good, except as an
exercise in the art of writing. No bookseller
would publish it; in 1850, he printed it himself
with the remnant of his little fund. It did not
sell; somebody bought the remainder of the
edition for a trifle.

But Lecouturier had commenced the struggle;
he saw clearly before him the road which he was
destined to follow; he was born to be a writer.
He had married a woman without fortune, whom
he lost when his prospects began to brighten.
His trials were severe, but his courage was
unfailing. In 1854, his appointment as scientific
editor to the Pays newspaper established his
position, and displayed the peculiar merits for
which the reading public admired him. Lecouturier
was no great discoverer; he propounded
no important novel theories, he brought to
light no unknown natural phenomena, and can
hardly be said to have extended the existing
limits of human knowledge. But, instead of
creating light, he was gifted with the faculty of
spreading it. He had the art of communicating
to the unlearned many of the secrets possessed
by the learned few. He unlocked science from the
strong-box of dog-Latin, mathematical formulæ,
and technical language, in which selfish pedants
might be inclined to keep it imprisoned,
and then spread it broadcast over the world.
He was a lucid populariser of abstruse things.
Of late, astronomy was his favourite pursuit.
His numerous labours were contributions to
periodical literature; his most important work,
as a whole, is the Panorama des Mondes,
unfortunately still unfinished. His life was shortened
by his incessant toil. He is much regretted as
a modest, simple, and amiable man, whose society
was a pleasure, and his friendship an honourable
satisfaction.

Until the invention of telescopes, the most
learned astronomers could know no more of the
physical condition of the moon than the most
unmathematical sailor or coast-guard who keeps
his watch by night. The clearness of a southern
sky might help them a little, but not much.
They might see that the moon's disk was made
up of darker and brighter portions, some of
which have a clearly defined outline, such as
those which may be distinguished by the naked
eye in the upper part towards the right. That
nearest to the edge—a small dark spot,
completely surrounded by a bright ground—is what
astronomers call the Sea of Crises. Nearer to
the middle of the disk is a larger dark irregular
patch, the Sea of Serenity, which forms one of
the eyes—a severe black eye, such as might be
the result of a fight—if we suppose the moon
to represent the human face. The equatorial
portion of the moon is occupied by a considerable
breadth of shadowy parts, whose broken
and undecided outline has given rise to the
idea of the Man in the Moon, which is recorded
by unanimous and almost universal tradition.
Imagination, supplied every defect in the
picture. The Sea of Tranquillity, which forms the
body, divides into the Seas of Fecundity and of
Nectar, which represent the legs. One arm is
formed by a jutting golf of the Sea of
Tranquillity to the right; the other by a larger gulf,
called the Sea of Vapours. According to this
reading of lunar geography, the Sea of Serenity
is the man's bundle of sticks; in the southern
hemisphere, to the left, is the Sea of Humours,