Page:The Great Moon Hoax of 1835 (IA TheGreatMoonHoaxOf18351859).pdf/28

Rh very resplendent. I now thought that we had assuredly fallen on productions of art; but Dr. Herschel shrewdly remarked, that if the Lunarians could build thirty or forty miles of such monuments as these, we should ere now have discovered others of a less equivocal character. He pronounced them quartz formations, of probably the wine-colored amethyst species, and promised us, from these and other proofs which he had obtained of the powerful action of laws of crystallization in this planet, a rich field of mineralogical study. On introducing a lens, his conjecture was fully confirmed; they were monstrous amethysts, of a diluted claret color, glowing in the intensest light of the sun! They varied in height from sixty to ninety feet, though we saw several of a still more incredible altitude. They were observed in a succession of valleys divided by longitudinal lines of round-breasted hills, covered with verdure and nobly undulated; but what is most remarkable, the valleys which contained these stupendous crystals were invariably barren, and covered with stones of a ferruginous hue, which were probably iron pyrites. We found that some of these curiosities were situated in a district elevated half a mile above the valley of the Mare Fœcunditatis, of Mayer and Ricciolí; the shores of which soon hove in view. But never was a name more inappropriately bestowed. From "Dan to Beersheba" all was barren, barren—the sea-board was entirely composed of chalk and flint, and not a vestige of vegetation could be discovered with our strongest glasses. The whole breadth of the northern extremity of this sea, which was about three hundred miles, having crossed our plane, we entered upon a wild moantainous region abounding with more extensive forests of larger trees than we had before seen—the species of which I have no good analogy to describe. In general contour they resembled our forest oak; but they were much more superb in foliage, having broad glossy leaves like that of the laurel, and tresses of yellow flowers which hang, in the open glades, from the branches to the ground. These mountains passed, we arrived at a region which filled us with utter astonishment. It was an oval valley, surrounded, except at a narrow opening towards the south, by hills, red as the purest vermilion, and evidently