Page:A discovery that the moon has a vast population of human beings.djvu/34

 we had left in the south-west, and yet they were comparatively indistinct upon the canvass. On sliding in the gas-light lens the mystery was immediately solved. They were old craters of extinct volcanoes, from which still issued a heated though transparent exhalation, that kept them in an apparently oscillatory or trembling motion, most unfavorable to examination. The craters of both these hills, as nearly as we could judge under this obstruction, were about fifteen fathoms deep, devoid of any appearance of fire, and of nearly a yellowish white color throughout. The diameter of each was about nine diameters of our painted circle, or nearly 450 feet; and the width of the rim surrounding them about 1000 feet; yet notwithstanding their narrow mouths, these two chimneys of the subterranean deep had evidently filled the whole area of the valley in which they stood with the lava and ashes with which it was encumbered, and even added to the height, if not indeed caused the existence of the oval chain of mountains which surrounded it. These mountains, as subsequently measured from the level of some large lakes around them, averaged the height of 2,800 feet; and Dr. Herschel conjectured from this and the vast extent of their abutments, which ran for many miles into the country around them, that these volcanoes must have been in full activity for a million of years. Lieut. Drummond, however, rather supposed that the whole area of this oval valley was but the exhausted crater of one vast volcano, which in expiring had left only these two imbecile representatives of its power. I believe Dr. Herschel himself afterwards adopted this probable theory, which is indeed confirmed by the universal geology of the planet. There is scarcely a hundred miles of her surface, not even excepting her largest seas and lakes, in which circular or oval mountainous ridges may not be easily found; and many, very many of these having numerous enclosed hills in full volcanic operation, which are now much lower than the surrounding circles, it admits of no doubt that each of these great formations is the remains of one vast mountain which has burnt itself out, and left only these wide foundations of its ancient grandeur. A direct proof of this is afforded in a tremendous volcano, now in its prime, which I shall hereafter