thus, Mount Newton, situated near the north
limb of the moon, overtops an abyss which
remains in perpetual darkness; it never
receives either the direct light of the sun or
the reflected light of the earth. Close to the
Peak of Aristarchus there must be a chasm
which is unparalleled by anything on earth.
A Spanish naval officer, Don Antonio Ulloa,
observed during the total eclipse of seventeen
hundred and seventy-eight, a luminous point
which shone successively like stars of the
fourth, third, and second magnitude. Ulloa
explained what he had seen by supposing the
sun's rays to have penetrated through a
fissure in the lunar globe, whose entire depth,
according to Lalaude's calculations, could not
have been less than two hundred and fifty
miles. Ulloa's hole, although astronomers
refused to acknowledge it, was again seen
during the total eclipse of eighteen hundred
and forty-two by Don Pedro Vieta of
Barcelona, who stated the additional
circumstance that the hole was crooked. While
observing the same eclipse, Monsieur Valz,
the learned director of the observatory at
Marseilles, saw, during the total obscuration,
several brilliant luminous points of the solar
disc through cracks or perforations in the
moon. The stream of light exactly resembled
a ray of sunshine darting into a darkened
room through a hole in the shutter. In this
case, the moon must have an open chink
three hundred and fifty miles long from one
aperture to the other.

But enough of these colossal horrors, which
have neither life nor variety to recommend
them. There is a monotony in the desolation
reigning in the moon, to which scenes of
earthly sublimity have but a faint and
distant resemblance. Let us change the direction
of our lunar prospect; let us look up to
the sky—or what ought to be the sky—and
there we behold the noble aspect of the earth
shining overhead—an enormous globe, almost
stationary in respect to its position in the
heavens, although presenting the same phases
of crescent, full, and waning earth as the
moon displays every month to us, only on a
scale just thirteen times larger. What a
marvellous panorama is exhibited by the
earth viewed from the moon! Verily, if
there really be no Seleuites, or moon-men,
hidden in the depths of her valleys, it is a
great pity that such a magnificent spectacle
should not have constant admirers, instead of
being only peeped at now and then by
occasional enthusiastic travellers like ourselves.
It may be a good thing, however, for us that
there should be no moonites in existence;
for if they took any offence or bore any
grudge against us, they might contrive to do
us considerable damage. The weight of any
substance at the surface of the moon is about
five times less than it is on earth. From
this datum, Lagrange and Laplace calculated
that if the moonites had sufficient industry
and manufacturing resources to fabricate
large pieces of artillery, they might easily
shoot the earth, by taking good aim, without
its being even possible for us to have our
revenge by returning their cannon-balls and
shooting the moon.

The aspect of the earth beheld from the
moon, always gorgeous, is never the same.
Before it floats, a flickering drapery adorned
with moveable ever-changing spots, which
are continually disappearing, to give place to
others of fresh form and pattern. Cloudy
belts are drawn in certain directions by the
agency of monsoons and trade winds. Stripes
diverging in other directions are the traces
of the polar gales, which rush towards the
temperate zones, sweeping the heaving masses
of mist and vapour before them. The freaks
and violence of the untamed winds give to
our planet a more singular and changeable
aspect than that of Jupiter as we behold him
striped across with transverse bands or belts.
In consequence of these continual alterations
of the outer veil, it rarely is possible to catch
acomplete view of the configuration of our
continents or of the exact limits of our wide-spread
oceans. Lunar students of terrestrial geography,
unable ever to obtain at once an entire
view of either of our hemispheres, might
nevertheless construct an accurate map by noting
down the details of various countries as they
presented themselves from time to time, and
then combining the fragments into a whole.
It would simply be an exercise of the same
mental powers which a child exerts when he
fits together his puzzle map of England,
finding its proper place for every one of the
counties which have been mingled pell-mell
in the box. Selenite members of the
Geographical Society enjoy the great advantage
of having a full view of localities which are
all but inaccessible to us. They are able to
inspect Central Africa with less fatigue than
Doctor Livingstone, and they can form an
idea of what the North Pole is like without
sharing the sad fate of Franklin.

But while the outlines of the earth's disc
are vague and difficult to determine, her
colouring is decided and strongly contrasted.
At each pole of the shining planet is a vast
white spot which offers a singular phenomenon.
Although perpetually there, and never
effaced, they periodically vary in size, re-
assuming their original appearance, after the
completion of the three hundred and sixty-
five revolutions on its axis, which constitute
the terrestrial year. In proportion as the
white spot on one pole diminishes, that of the
opposite pole increases; it is as if one of the
rival powers reconquered a portion of ground
exactly equal to that lost by the other, so
that they advance and retreat reciprocally,
maintaining, on the whole, between the two,
an equal amount of territory. Nevertheless,
the northern white spot is always considerably
smaller than the southern. To Selenites,
who have no notion or knowledge of water
and ice, the variations of these two white