Manned space flight -- Fiction; Moon -- Fiction; Science fiction; Space flight to the moon -- Fiction; Space ships -- Fiction
After him, a German astronomer, Tobie Marger, about the middle of the
eighteenth century, began the publication of a magnificent selenographic
map, according to lunar measures, which he rigorously verified; but his
death, which took place in 1762, prevented the termination of this
beautiful work.
It was in 1830 that Messrs. Boeer and Moedler composed their celebrated
_Mappa Selenographica_, according to an orthographical projection. This
map reproduces the exact lunar disc, such as it appears, only the
configurations of the mountains and plains are only correct in the
central part; everywhere else--in the northern or southern portions,
eastern or western--the configurations foreshortened cannot be compared
with those of the centre. This topographical map, one yard high and
divided into four parts, is a masterpiece of lunar chartography.
After these _savants_ may be cited the selenographic reliefs of the
German astronomer Julius Schmidt, the topographical works of Father
Secchi, the magnificent sheets of the English amateur, Waren de la Rue,
and lastly a map on orthographical projection of Messrs. Lecouturier and
Chapuis, a fine model set up in 1860, of very correct design and clear
outlines.
Such is the nomenclature of the different maps relating to the lunar
world. Barbicane possessed two, that of Messrs. Boeer and Moedler and
that of Messrs. Chapuis and Lecouturier. They were to make his work of
observer easier.
They had excellent marine glasses specially constructed for this
journey. They magnified objects a hundred times; they would therefore
have reduced the distance between the earth and the moon to less than
1,000 leagues. But then at a distance which towards 3 a.m. did not
exceed a hundred miles, and in a medium which no atmosphere obstructed,
these instruments brought the lunar level to less than fifteen hundred
metres.
CHAPTER XI.
IMAGINATION AND REALITY.
"Have you ever seen the moon?" a professor asked one of his pupils
ironically.
"No, sir," answered the pupil more ironically still, "but I have heard
it spoken of."
In one sense the jocose answer of the pupil might have been made by the
immense majority of sublunary beings. How many people there are who have
heard the moon spoken of and have never seen it--at least through a
telescope! How many even have never examined the map of their satellite!
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