Thus they remarked that when the moon was at her full
the disc appeared in certain places striped with white
lines, and during her phases striped with black lines.
By prosecuting the study of these with greater precision
they succeeded in making out the exact nature of these
lines. They are long and narrow furrows sunk
between parallel ridges, bordering generally upon
the edges of the craters; their length varied from
ten to one hundred miles, and their width was about
1,600 yards. Astronomers called them furrows,
and that was all they could do; they could not ascertain
whether they were the dried-up beds of ancient rivers
or not. The Americans hope, some day or other,
to determine this geological question. They also
undertake to reconnoitre the series of parallel ramparts
discovered on the surface of the moon by Gruithuysen,
a learned professor of Munich, who considered them
to be a system of elevated fortifications raised by
Selenite engineers. These two still obscure points,
and doubtless many others, can only be definitely settled
by direct communication with the moon.
As to the intensity of her light there is nothing
more to be learnt; it is 300,000 times weaker than
that of the sun, and its heat has no appreciable action
upon thermometers; as to the phenomenon known as the
“ashy light,” it is naturally explained
by the effect of the sun’s rays transmitted
from the earth to the moon, and which seem to complete
the lunar disc when it presents a crescent form during
its first and last phases.
Such was the state of knowledge acquired respecting
the earth’s satellite which the Gun Club undertook
to perfect under all its aspects, cosmographical,
geographical, geological, political, and moral.
CHAPTER VI.
WHAT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO IGNORE AND WHAT IS NO LONGER
ALLOWED TO BE BELIEVED IN THE UNITED STATES.
The immediate effect of Barbicane’s proposition
was that of bringing out all astronomical facts relative
to the Queen of Night. Everybody began to study
her assiduously. It seemed as if the moon had
appeared on the horizon for the first time, and that
no one had ever seen her in the sky before. She
became the fashion; she was the lion of the day, without
appearing less modest on that account, and took her
place amongst the “stars” without being
any the prouder. The newspapers revived old anecdotes
in which this “Sun of the wolves” played
a part; they recalled the influence which the ignorance
of past ages had ascribed to her; they sang about
her in every tone; a little more and they would have
quoted her witty sayings; the whole of America was
filled with selenomania.
The scientific journals treated the question which
touched upon the enterprise of the Gun Club more specially;
they published the letter from the Observatory of
Cambridge, they commented upon it and approved of
it without reserve.
In short, even the most ignorant Yankee was no longer
allowed to be ignorant of a single fact relative to
his satellite, nor, to the oldest women amongst them,
to have any superstitions about her left. Science
flooded them; it penetrated into their eyes and ears;
it was impossible to be an ass—in astronomy.
