zation similar to our own, that she once
produced animals anatomically resembling our terrestrial animals, and
that all these living organizations, human and animal, have had their
day, that that day vanished ages and ages ago, and that, consequently,
_Life_, extinguished forever, can never again reveal its existence there
under any form."

"Is the Chair," asked Ardan, "to infer from the honorable gentleman's
observations that he considers the Moon to be a world much older than
the Earth?"

"Not exactly that," replied the Captain without hesitation; "I rather
mean to say that the Moon is a world that grew old more rapidly than the
Earth; that it came to maturity earlier; that it ripened quicker, and
was stricken with old age sooner. Owing to the difference of the volumes
of the two worlds, the organizing forces of matter must have been
comparatively much more violent in the interior of the Moon than in the
interior of the Earth. The present condition of its surface, as we see
it lying there beneath us at this moment, places this assertion beyond
all possibility of doubt. Wrinkled, pitted, knotted, furrowed, scarred,
nothing that we can show on Earth resembles it. Moon and Earth were
called into existence by the Creator probably at the same period of
time. In the first stages of their existence, they do not seem to have
been anything better than masses of gas. Acted upon by various forces
and various influences, all of course directed by an omnipotent
intelligence, these gases by degrees became liquid, and the liquids grew
condensed into solids until solidity could retain its shape. But the two
heavenly bodies, though starting at the same time, developed at a very
different ratio. Most undoubtedly, our globe was still gaseous or at
most only liquid, at the period when the Moon, already hardened by
cooling, began to become inhabitable."

"_Most undoubtedly_ is good!" observed Ardan admiringly.

"At this period," continued the learned Captain, "an atmosphere
surrounded her. The waters, shut in by this gaseous envelope, could no
longer evaporate. Under the combined influences of air, water, light,
and solar heat as well as internal heat, vegetation began to overspread
the continents by this time ready to receive it, and most undoubtedly--I
mean--a--incontestably--it was at this epoch that _life_ manifested
itself on the lunar surface. I say _incontestably_ advisedly, for Nature
never exhausts herself in producing useles