The Moon: A Popular TreatiseServiss, Garrett Putman
Science
The Moon: A Popular Treatise
Serviss, Garrett Putman
Moon
“One reason for that is because this photograph represents them on a
much larger scale, and with infinitely more detail. Another reason is
that now we are looking at them in the lunar afternoon instead of the
lunar morning. We are going to see them represented on a still larger
scale, presently, but there are many things in this picture well worthy
of study. Advancing from the west, the line of night has fallen over the
extreme eastern border of the _Mare Nectaris_, and the shadows thrown by
the setting sun point westward. Observe how beautifully the brightly
illuminated terraces and mighty cliffs of the western wall of Theophilus
contrast with the black shadow that projects over half of the interior
from the sharp verge of the eastern wall. The complicated central
mountain is particularly well shown. The loftiest peak of this mountain
mass, which covers 300 square miles, is 6,000 feet in height. You will
see its shadow reaching the foot of the western wall. Theophilus is 64
miles in diameter, ten miles more than Tycho, and it is deeper than
Tycho, the floor sinking 18,000 feet below the top of the highest point
on the western wall. If it were the focus of a similar ray system it
would deserve to be called the ‘Metropolitan Crater’ rather than Tycho.
Plainly, Theophilus was formed later than its neighbor Cyrillus, because
the southwestern wall of the latter has been destroyed to make room for
the perfect ring of Theophilus.
“The interior of Cyrillus, you will observe, is very different from that
of Theophilus. The floor is more irregular and mountainous. The wall,
also, is much more complex than that of Theophilus. The broken state of
the wall in itself is an indication of the greater age of Cyrillus. On
the south an enormous pass in the wall of Cyrillus leads out upon a
mountain-edged plateau which continues to the wall of the third of the
great rings, Catharina. This formation seems to be of about the same age
as Cyrillus, possibly somewhat older. Its wall is more broken and worn
down, and the northern third of the inclosure is occupied by the wreck
of a large ring. Observe the curious row of relatively small craters,
with low mountain ranges paralleling them, which begins at the
southwestern corner of Cyrillus and runs, with interruptions, for 150
miles or more. South of this is a broad valley with small craters on its
bottom, and then comes an elongated mountainous region with a
conspicuous crater in its center, beyond which appears another valley,
which passes round the east side of Catharina, where it is divided in
the center by a short range of hills. The southeastern side of this
valley is bounded by the grand cliffs of the Altai Mountains, which
continue on until they encounter the eastern wall of the great ring of
Piccolomini, whose interior appears entirely dark in the picture, only a
few peaks on the wall indicating the outlines of the ring. The serrated
shadow of these mountains, thrown westward by the setting sun, forms one
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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