Page:The Great Moon Hoax of 1835 (IA TheGreatMoonHoaxOf18351859).pdf/34

Rh notice. What gave the name of The Lake of Death' to the annular mountain I have just described, was, I suppose, the dark appearance of the valley which it encloses, and which, to a more distant view than we obtained, certainly exhibits the general aspect of the waters on this planet. The surrounding country is fertile to excess: between this circle and No. 2 (Endymion), which we proposed first to examine, we counted not less than twelve luxuriant forests, divided by open plains, which waved in an ocean of verdure, and were probably prairies like those of North America. In three of these we discovered numerous herds of quadrupeds similar to our friends the bisons in the Valley of the Unicorn, but of much larger size; and scarcely a piece of woodland occurred in oar panorama which did not dazzle our vision with flocks of white or red birds upon the wing.

"At length we carefully explored the Endymion. We found each of the three ovals volcanic and sterile within; but, without, most rich, throughout the level regions around them, in every imaginable production of a bounteous soil. Dr. Herschel has classified not less than thirty-eight species of forest trees, and nearly twice this number of plants, found in this tract alone, which are widely different to those found in more equatorial latitudes. Of animals, he classified nine species of mammalia, and five of ovipara. Among the former is a small kind of rein-deer, the elk, the moose, the horned bear, and the biped beaver. The last resembles the beaver of the earth in every other respect than in its destitution of a tail, and its in variable habit of walking upon only two feet. It carries its young in its arms like a human being, and moves with an easy gliding motion. Its huts are constructed better and higher than those of many tribes of human savages, and from the appearance of smoke in nearly all of them, there is no doubt of its being acquainted with the use of fire. Still its head and body differ only in the points stated from that of the beaver, and it was never seen except on the borders of lakes and rivers, in which it has been observed to immerse for a period of several seconds.

"Thirty degrees farther south, in No. 11, or Cleomedes, an