In the left hemisphere stretches the “Sea of Clouds,” where human reason is so often drowned.  Not far off appears the “Sea of Rains,” fed by all the worries of existence.  Near lies the “Sea of Tempests,” where man struggles incessantly against his too-often victorious passions.  Then, exhausted by deceptions, treasons, infidelities, and all the procession of terrestrial miseries, what does he find at the end of his career?  The vast “Sea of Humours,” scarcely softened by some drops from the waters of the “Gulf of Dew!” Clouds, rain, tempests, humours, does the life of man contain aught but these? and is it not summed up in these four words?

The right-hand hemisphere dedicated to “the women” contains smaller seas, the significant names of which agree with every incident of feminine existence.  There is the “Sea of Serenity,” over which bends the young maiden, and the “Lake of Dreams,” which reflects her back a happy future.  The “Sea of Nectar,” with its waves of tenderness and breezes of love!  The “Sea of Fecundity,” the “Sea of Crises,” and the “Sea of Vapours,” the dimensions of which are, perhaps, too restricted, and lastly, that vast “Sea of Tranquillity” where all false passions, all useless dreams, all unassuaged desires are absorbed, and the waves of which flow peacefully into the “Lake of Death!”

What a strange succession of names!  What a singular division of these two hemispheres of the moon, united to one another like man and woman, and forming a sphere of life, carried through space.  And was not the imaginative Michel right in thus interpreting the fancies of the old astronomers?

But whilst his imagination thus ran riot on the “seas,” his grave companions were looking at things more geographically.  They were learning this new world by heart.  They were measuring its angles and diameters.

To Barbicane and Nicholl the “Sea of Clouds” was an immense depression of ground, with circular mountains scattered about on it; covering a great part of the western side of the southern hemisphere, it covered 184,800 square leagues, and its centre was in south latitude 15 deg., and west longitude 20 deg..  The Ocean of Tempests, Oceanus Procellarum, the largest plain on the lunar disc, covered a surface of 328,300 square leagues, its centre being in north latitude 10 deg., and east longitude 45 deg..  From its bosom emerge the admirable shining mountains of Kepler and Aristarchus.

More to the north, and separated from the Sea of Clouds by high chains of mountains, extends the Sea of Rains, Mare Imbrium, having its central point in north latitude 35 deg. and east longitude 20 deg.; it is of a nearly circular form, and covers a space of 193,000 leagues.  Not far distant the Sea of Humours, Mare Humorum, a little basin of 44,200 square leagues only, was situated in south latitude 25 deg., and east longitude 40 deg..  Lastly, three gulfs lie on the coast of this hemisphere—­the Torrid Gulf, the Gulf of Dew, and the Gulf of Iris, little plains inclosed by high chains of mountains.