these the central peaks were formed.” “You are going to think me too romantic, or too imaginative, again,” said my friend, with a smile, “but I cannot prevent myself from wondering what the inhabitants of the moon did and thought while all those marvelous things were happening.” “I have not said that there were inhabitants of the moon.” “No, but you have confessed that there might have been inhabitants, some time, and I should like to know whether they were there when those terrible volcanoes were formed.” “If they were,” I replied, “they could not have survived such a universal upheaval as the surface of the moon has undergone. You have seen in the photographs that the great rings and smaller craters are scattered thickly over the moon. It is true that comparatively few are found in the level expanses called ‘seas,’ but if those regions were covered with water they could only have been inhabited by beings provided with gills and fins.” “How long ago did these explosions occur?” “I cannot tell you, except that it must have been many ages in the past; so long ago, indeed, that the whole course of human history seems but a day in comparison.” “Then,” said my friend with animation, “there has been time enough _since_ that dreadful period for inhabitants to develop upon the moon, has there not?” “Yes, time enough, perhaps, provided that sufficient water and air and other vital requisites remained after the exhaustion of the volcanic energies.” “Oh, let us say that they did remain. I am eager to believe that the moon has not always been so desolate as she appears at present.” “Very well, you are at liberty to believe that if you like. No astronomer is likely positively to contradict you, although he may smile a little incredulously. Besides, as I have already told you, there are certain rather inconclusive indications of some kind of life, and of some kind of activity, still on the moon.” “Please show them to me, then, or tell me about them. Perhaps I shall find them less inconclusive than you do.” “Everything in its turn,” I replied. “We shall come to the indications that I have spoken of after we resume the inspection of the photographs.” “Then I am ready to resume at once.” Accordingly we returned to the table and the photographs under the pleasant shade of the elm. Taking up the photograph numbered 7, I remarked that it exhibited the moon as it appears a little after First Quarter; that is to say, a trifle more than half the face turned toward the earth is in the sunlight. I called attention once more to the six “seas,” which we had already remarked, and to the continued conspicuousness of Theophilus and its companions, a little above the middle of the visible hemisphere.