rrounded the travellers. Nay, the Moon, realizing the
weird fancy of the Arabian poet, who calls her a "giant stiffening into
granite, but struggling madly against his doom," might shriek, in a
spasm of agony, loudly enough to be heard in Sirius. But our travellers
could not hear it. Their ears no sound could now reach. They could no
more detect the rending of a continent than the falling of a feather.
Air, the propagator and transmitter of sound, was absent from her
surface. Her cries, her struggles, her groans, were all smothered
beneath the impenetrable tomb of eternal silence!

These were some of the fanciful ideas by which Ardan tried to amuse his
companions in the present unsatisfactory state of affairs. His efforts,
however well meant, were not successful. M'Nicholl's growls were more
savage than usual, and even Barbican's patience was decidedly giving
way. The loss of the other face they could have easily borne--with most
of its details they had been already familiar. But, no, it must be the
dark face that now escaped their observation! The very one that for
numberless reasons they were actually dying to see! They looked out of
the windows once more at the black Moon beneath them.

There it lay below them, a round black spot, hiding the sweet faces of
the stars, but otherwise no more distinguishable by the travellers than
if they were lying in the depths of the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky. And
just think. Only fifteen days before, that dark face had been splendidly
illuminated by the solar beams, every crater lustrous, every peak
sparkling, every streak glistening under the vertical ray. In fifteen
days later, a day light the most brilliant would have replaced a
midnight the most Cimmerian. But in fifteen days later, where would the
Projectile be? In what direction would it have been drawn by the forces
innumerable of attractions incalculable? To such a question as this,
even Ardan would reply only by an ominous shake of the head.

We know already that our travellers, as well as astronomers generally,
judging from that portion of the dark side occasionally revealed by the
Moon's librations, were _pretty certain_ that there is no great
difference between her two sides, as far as regards their physical
constitutions. This portion, about the seventh part, shows plains and
mountains, circles and craters, all of precisely the same nature as
those already laid down on the chart. Judging therefore from analogy,
the othe