e fifteen to twenty thousand feet in height,
or even higher. Frequently a mountain rises near the centre of the
floor, some rings containing more than one such mountain, whilst others
have none at all.

[Illustration: _Drawn by M. Wicks_ Plate II

IDEAL VIEW OF LUNAR SCENERY

As there is no atmosphere on the moon, the sky is a dense black, and the
stars shine brilliantly in the daytime. The view is a typical one,
showing numerous craters and cracks, and a small ring-mountain with
terracing. Ring-mountains and plains vary from a few miles to 150 miles
diameter, some mountains being nearly 20,000 feet in height.]

"There are numerous instances where one mountain ring has overlapped or
cut into another, thus indicating that it was a later formation; and in
many cases the mountains are 'terraced,'[5] as it is termed, either
owing to a series of landslips or to the rise and fall of a sea of lava,
which cooled as it sank down, thus forming terraces. Small craters
abound all over the surface of the moon and on the floors of the rings;
cracks in the lunar surface are also numerous.

"As regards the lunar mountains, it may truly be said that we have a
fairly accurate knowledge of peaks and mountains which would either be
too precipitous to be climbed, or quite inaccessible to us, if we could
actually land upon the moon; and the whole visible surface has been more
carefully and thoroughly mapped out and studied than is the case with
many parts of our own earth.

"If the moon has any atmosphere it must be so very attenuated indeed
that human beings could not possibly live in it at all; but nothing has
yet been detected which would enable us to say positively that any
atmosphere does exist there, although there have been some indications
observed which support the supposition that there may be an extremely
thin air.

"Nor does it appear possible that there is any water upon its surface at
the present; in fact, many astronomers are of opinion that the moon
never did have any water upon it. Personally, from a study of many of
the formations as seen through the telescope, it seems to me quite
impossible that they could owe their existence in their present state to
anything but the action of water. They present much the same appearance
as formations on our own earth which we know have been fashioned by that
means. There is no water upon the moon now, I think, though several
large depressions are still called oceans, seas, lakes