The moon : $b a full description and map of its principal physical featuresElger, Thomas Gwyn
Science
The moon : $b a full description and map of its principal physical features
Elger, Thomas Gwyn
Moon
ERATOSTHENES.--A noble ring-plain, 38 miles in diameter; a worthy
termination of the Apennines. The best view of it is obtained under
morning illumination when the interior is about half-filled with shadow.
At this phase the many irregular terraces on the inner slope of the E.
wall (which rises at one peak 16,000 feet above an interior depressed
8000 feet below the Mare Imbrium) are seen to the best advantage. The
central mountain is made up of two principal peaks, nearly central, from
which two bright curved hills extend nearly up to the N.W. wall,--the
whole forming a V-shaped arrangement. On the S. there is a narrow break
in the wall, and the S.W. section of it seems to overlap and extend some
distance beyond the S.E. section. The border on the S.W. is remarkable
for the great width of its _glacis_. Eratosthenes exhibits a marked
departure from circularity, especially on the E., where the wall consists
of two well-marked linear sections, with an intermediate portion where
the crest for 20 miles or more bends inwards or towards the centre. From
the S.E. flank of this formation extends towards the W. side of Stadius
one of the grandest mountain arms on the moon's visible surface, rising
at one place 9000 feet, and in two others 5000 and 3000 feet respectively
above the Mare Imbrium. If this magnificent object is observed when the
morning terminator falls a little E. of Stadius, it affords a spectacle
not easily forgotten. I have often seen it at this phase when its broad
mass of shadow extended across the well-known crater-row W. of
Copernicus, some of the component craters appearing between the spires of
shade representing the loftiest peaks on the mountain arm. There is a
prominent little crater on the crest of the arm between two of the peaks,
and another on the plain to the west.
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