Page:The evolution of worlds - Lowell.djvu/243

Rh So sealike, indeed, was their look that the first astronomers to note them took them unhesitatingly for water expanses. Thus the moment the telescope brought the Moon near enough for map making of it we find the

dark patches at once designated as seas. The Sea of Serenity, the Sea of Showers, the Bay of Rainbows, speak still of what once was supposed to be the nature of the dark, smooth, lunar surfaces they name. Suggestively, indeed, in an opera glass do they seem to lap the land. The Lake of Dreams fore-shadowed what was eventually to be thought of them. With increasing optical approach the substance evaporated, but the form remained. It was speedily evident that there was no water there; yet the semblance of its repository still lurked in those shadows and suggests itself to one scanning their surfaces to-day. If they be not old sea bottoms, they singularly mimic the reality in their smooth, sloping floors and their long, curving lines of beach. Their strange uniformity shows that something protected them from volcanic fury while the rest of the