Fancy And Reality

: From The Earth To The Moon

"Have you ever seen the moon?" asked a professor, ironically,

of one of his pupils.



"No, sir!" replied the pupil, still more ironically, "but I must

say I have heard it spoken of."



In one sense, the pupil's witty answer might be given by a large

majority of sublunary beings. How many people have heard speak

of the moon who have never seen it-- at least through a glass or

a tele cope! How many have never examined the map of their satellite!



In looking at a selenographic map, one peculiarity strikes us.

Contrary to the arrangement followed for that of the Earth and

Mars, the continents occupy more particularly the southern

hemisphere of the lunar globe. These continents do not show

such decided, clear, and regular boundary lines as South

America, Africa, and the Indian peninsula. Their angular,

capricious, and deeply indented coasts are rich in gulfs

and peninsulas. They remind one of the confusion in the

islands of the Sound, where the land is excessively indented.

If navigation ever existed on the surface of the moon, it must

have been wonderfully difficult and dangerous; and we may well

pity the Selenite sailors and hydrographers; the former, when

they came upon these perilous coasts, the latter when they

took the soundings of its stormy banks.



We may also notice that, on the lunar sphere, the south pole is

much more continental than the north pole. On the latter, there

is but one slight strip of land separated from other continents

by vast seas. Toward the south, continents clothe almost the

whole of the hemisphere. It is even possible that the Selenites

have already planted the flag on one of their poles, while

Franklin, Ross, Kane, Dumont, d'Urville, and Lambert have never

yet been able to attain that unknown point of the terrestrial globe.



As to islands, they are numerous on the surface of the moon.

Nearly all oblong or circular, and as if traced with the

compass, they seem to form one vast archipelago, equal to that

charming group lying between Greece and Asia Minor, and which

mythology in ancient times adorned with most graceful legends.

Involuntarily the names of Naxos, Tenedos, and Carpathos, rise

before the mind, and we seek vainly for Ulysses' vessel or the

"clipper" of the Argonauts. So at least it was in Michel

Ardan's eyes. To him it was a Grecian archipelago that he saw

on the map. To the eyes of his matter-of-fact companions, the

aspect of these coasts recalled rather the parceled-out land of

New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and where the Frenchman

discovered traces of the heroes of fable, these Americans

were marking the most favorable points for the establishment

of stores in the interests of lunar commerce and industry.



After wandering over these vast continents, the eye is attracted

by the still greater seas. Not only their formation, but their

situation and aspect remind one of the terrestrial oceans; but

again, as on earth, these seas occupy the greater portion of

the globe. But in point of fact, these are not liquid spaces,

but plains, the nature of which the travelers hoped soon

to determine. Astronomers, we must allow, have graced these

pretended seas with at least odd names, which science has

respected up to the present time. Michel Ardan was right when

he compared this map to a "Tendre card," got up by a Scudary or

a Cyrano de Bergerac. "Only," said he, "it is no longer the

sentimental card of the seventeenth century, it is the card of

life, very neatly divided into two parts, one feminine, the

other masculine; the right hemisphere for woman, the left for man."



In speaking thus, Michel made his prosaic companions shrug

their shoulders. Barbicane and Nicholl looked upon the lunar

map from a very different point of view to that of their

fantastic friend. Nevertheless, their fantastic friend was a

little in the right. Judge for yourselves.



In the left hemisphere stretches the "Sea of Clouds," where

human reason is so often shipwrecked. Not far off lies the "Sea

of Rains," fed by all the fever of existence. Near this is the

"Sea of Storms," where man is ever fighting against his

passions, which too often gain the victory. Then, worn out by

deceit, treasons, infidelity, and the whole body of terrestrial

misery, what does he find at the end of his career? that vast

"Sea of Humors," barely softened by some drops of the waters

from the "Gulf of Dew!" Clouds, rain, storms, and humors-- does

the life of man contain aught but these? and is it not summed up

in these four words?



The right hemisphere, "dedicated to the ladies," encloses

smaller seas, whose significant names contain every incident of

a feminine existence. There is the "Sea of Serenity," over

which the young girl bends; "The Lake of Dreams," reflecting a

joyous future; "The Sea of Nectar," with its waves of tenderness

and breezes of love; "The Sea of Fruitfulness;" "The Sea of

Crises;" then the "Sea of Vapors," whose dimensions are perhaps

a little too confined; and lastly, that vast "Sea of

Tranquillity," in which every false passion, every useless

dream, every unsatisfied desire is at length absorbed, and whose

waves emerge peacefully into the "Lake of Death!"



What a strange succession of names! What a singular division of

the moon's two hemispheres, joined to one another like man and

woman, and forming that sphere of life carried into space!

And was not the fantastic Michel right in thus interpreting the

fancies of the ancient astronomers? But while his imagination

thus roved over "the seas," his grave companions were considering

things more geographically. They were learning this new world

by heart. They were measuring angles and diameters.