Page:Gods Glory in the Heavens.djvu/72

56 aspect of the moon as we gradually approach. We are soon able to discover a diversity of colour. From the earth's surface, the blaze of light obliterates the differences of colour, so that only variety of shade can be discerned; but as we approach, things assume the aspect of real mountains, valleys, and plains. We soon discover that the dark parts in the moon, which fancy shapes into the eyes, nose, and mouth of the face-in-the-moon, are vast plains. They are not, now, informly dark, for one region assumes the aspect of ploughed fields, another that of a vast savannah. The district known as the Sea of Serenity, and corresponding to the left eye of the face, has a rich green, as if clothed with luxuriant grass, or covered with vast forests of pine. We shall not alight upon the forest, but shall choose rather the Sea of Showers—the darkest part of the moon's surface, and corresponding to the right eye. We find here good footing, for it is neither a forest nor a sea. For hundreds of miles on all sides there is a dead flat. Here and there, solitary peaks, like that of Teneriffe, start from the plain, unconnected with any mountain-range. They rise from the vast prairie, as abruptly as the pyramids do from the sands of Egypt.

But as we travel on, we descry mountain-ranges rising in the horizon. Before alighting on the moon, we could distinctly note the contour of these ranges. While some stretched for hundreds of miles in nearly straight lines, there were others, and these the most