in a scientific sense, was no less
interesting than what we had been able to gather.

They had found within this curious ring of Plato, which is a circle of
mountains sixty miles in diameter, enclosing a level plain remarkably
smooth over most of its surface, unmistakable evidences of former
habitation. A gigantic city had evidently at one time existed near the
center of this great plain. The outlines of its walls and the foundation
marks of some of its immense buildings were plainly made out, and
elaborate plans of this vanished capitol of the moon were prepared by
several members of the party.

One of them was fortunate enough to discover an even more precious relic
of the ancient lunarians. It was a piece of petrified skullbone,
representing but a small portion of the head to which it had belonged,
but yet sufficient to enable the anthropologists, who immediately fell
to examining it, to draw ideal representations of the head as it must
have been in life--the head of a giant of enormous size, which, if it
had possessed a highly organized brain, of proportionate magnitude, must
have given to its possessor intellectual powers immensely greater than
any of the descendants of Adam have ever been endowed with.

Indeed, one of the professors was certain that some little concretions
found on the interior of the piece of skull were petrified portions of
the brain matter itself, and he set to work with the microscope to
examine its organic quality.

In the meantime, the repairs to the electrical ships had been completed,
and, although these discoveries on the moon had created a most profound
sensation among the members of the expedition, and aroused an almost
irresistable desire to continue the explorations thus happily begun, yet
everybody knew that these things were aside from the main purpose in
view, and that we should be false to our duty in wasting a moment more
upon the moon than was absolutely necessary to put the ships in proper
condition to proceed on their warlike voyage.

Everything being prepared then, we left the moon with great regret, just
forty-eight hours after we had landed upon its surface, carrying with us
a determination to revisit it and to learn more of its wonderful secrets
in case we should survive the dangers which we were now going to face.

CHAPTER SIX

_THE MONSTERS ON THE ASTEROID_

A day or two after leaving the moon, we had another adventure with a
wandering inhabitant of spa