The Moon: A Popular TreatiseServiss, Garrett Putman
Science
The Moon: A Popular Treatise
Serviss, Garrett Putman
Moon
“If I believed myself capable of rivaling the man who christened the
‘Marsh of a Dream,’ I should surely try my hand at lunar nomenclature,
but I fear that I should fall too far short of the ideal he has set up,
and so I shall leave her nameless.”
“Permit me then to continue to call her the ‘dark woman’ whenever a
reference to her may seem useful in fixing the localities that we shall
talk about in this photograph. The most striking object shown in the
picture is the great ring mountain Bullialdus which forms an
extraordinary ornament on the top of the ‘dark woman’s’ ear. This
photograph was taken when the line of sunrise ran just along the border
between the _Mare Nubium_ and the _Oceanus Procellarum_. The _Mare
Humorum_ is yet buried in night beyond the upper right-hand edge of the
picture, but some of its bordering mountains and craters have been
touched by the morning sunbeams. You will observe that a little more
than half of the interior of Bullialdus—which, by the way, I did not
mention by name when we were studying the series of phase photographs—is
yet filled with shadow, but its double-headed central peak rises clear
and bright in the sunlight. The shadow of this central mountain can be
seen projecting toward the east over the floor. The east wall, which is
distinctly terraced, lies in full sunshine, and the light streaming over
the lofty crest of the western wall touches the floor on its eastern
half. The steep outer slopes that lead up to the western rampart, and
the deep parallel ravines cut near the crest are clearly shown. The
distance across the ring from the summit of the wall on one side to that
on the other is 38 miles. The depth of the depression is 8,000 feet
below the crest of the walls, but the latter rise only 4,000 feet above
the level of the _Mare Nubium_ outside, so that Bullialdus is an
excellent example of the characteristic form of the lunar volcano, which
I tried to illustrate for you last evening. The central mountain is
3,000 feet high. East of the south point of the ring a shadow shows the
existence of a profound cleft in the wall, while a little west of south
appears a smaller crater ring very black with shadow, except on its
eastern side. If we stood on the _Mare Nubium_ and looked toward
Bullialdus and its neighbor from a distance of 25 or 30 miles they would
resemble a double, flat-topped mountain, with its serrated crests
connected by a high neck. The summit of one of the little peaks shown in
the photograph in the plain just west of Bullialdus would form an
excellent point of observation. Still farther south stands another
crater ring most of whose interior is also, at present, filled with
shadow. East of this, and a little farther south, is still a third ring
of similar aspect, from which a curious range of hills runs southward.
Returning to Bullialdus you will notice the radiating lines of hills
that surround it, and particularly a more lofty and broken range which
runs eastward.”
[Illustration:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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