cks, she sometimes allows herself to wander, moody, and
pouting, and not exactly knowing where she wants to go or what she wants
to do. Between the two last expands the great _Mare Tranquillitatis_,
the Sea of Tranquillity, into whose quiet depths are at last absorbed
all her simulated passions, all her futile aspirations, all her
unglutted desires, and whose unruffled waters are gliding on forever in
noiseless current towards _Lacus Mortis_, the Lake of Death, whose misty
shores

"In ruthless, vast, and gloomy woods are girt."

So at least Ardan mused as he stooped over Beer and Maedler's map. Did
not these strange successive names somewhat justify his flights of
fancy? Surely they had a wonderful variety of meaning. Was it by
accident or by forethought deep that the two hemispheres of the Moon had
been thus so strangely divided, yet, as man to woman, though divided
still united, and thus forming even in the cold regions of space a
perfect image of our terrestrial existence? Who can say that our
romantic French friend was altogether wrong in thus explaining the
astute fancies of the old astronomers?

His companions, however, it need hardly be said, never saw the "seas" in
that light. They looked on them not with sentimental but with
geographical eyes. They studied this new world and tried to get it by
heart, working at it like a school boy at his lessons. They began by
measuring its angles and diameters.

To their practical, common sense vision _Mare Nubium_, the Cloudy Sea,
was an immense depression of the surface, sprinkled here and there with
a few circular mountains. Covering a great portion of that part of the
southern hemisphere which lies east of the centre, it occupied a space
of about 270 thousand square miles, its central point lying in 15 deg. south
latitude and 20 deg. east longitude. Northeast from this lay _Oceanus
Procellarum_, the Ocean of Tempests, the most extensive of all the
plains on the lunar disc, embracing a surface of about half a million of
square miles, its centre being in 10 deg. north and 45 deg. east. From its bosom
those wonderful mountains _Kepler_ and _Aristarchus_ lifted their vast
ramparts glittering with innumerable streaks radiating in all
directions.

To the north, in the direction of _Mare Frigoris_, extends _Mare
Imbrium_, the Sea of Rains, its central point in 35 deg. north and 20 deg.
east. It is somewhat circular in shape, and it covers a space of about
300 thousand