Manned space flight -- Fiction; Moon -- Fiction; Science fiction; Space flight to the moon -- Fiction; Space ships -- Fiction
The "Feminine" hemisphere, naturally more capricious, was distinguished
by smaller and more numerous seas. These were, towards the north, the
_Mare Frigoris_, in north latitude 55° and longitude 0°, with 76,000
square leagues of surface, which joined the Lake of Death and Lake of
Dreams; the Sea of Serenity, _Mare Serenitatis_, by north latitude 25°
and west longitude 20°, comprising a surface of 80,000 square leagues;
the Sea of Crises, _Mare Crisium_, round and very compact, in north
latitude 17° and west longitude 55°, a surface of 40,000 square leagues,
a veritable Caspian buried in a girdle of mountains. Then on the
equator, in north latitude 5° and west longitude 25°, appeared the Sea
of Tranquillity, _Mare Tranquillitatis_, occupying 121,509 square
leagues of surface; this sea communicated on the south with the Sea of
Nectar, _Mare Nectaris_, an extent of 28,800 square leagues, in south
latitude 15° and west longitude 35°, and on the east with the Sea of
Fecundity, _Mare Fecunditatis_, the vastest in this hemisphere,
occupying 219,300 square leagues, in south latitude 3° and west
longitude 50°. Lastly, quite to the north and quite to the south lie two
more seas, the Sea of Humboldt, _Mare Humboldtianum_, with a surface of
6,500 square leagues, and the Southern Sea, _Mare Australe_, with a
surface of 26,000.
In the centre of the lunar disc, across the equator and on the zero
meridian, lies the centre gulf, _Sinus Medii_, a sort of hyphen between
the two hemispheres.
Thus appeared to the eyes of Nicholl and Barbicane the surface always
visible of the earth's satellite. When they added up these different
figures they found that the surface of this hemisphere measured
4,738,160 square leagues, 3,317,600 of which go for volcanoes, chains of
mountains, amphitheatres, islands--in a word, all that seems to form the
solid portion of the globe--and 1,410,400 leagues for the seas, lake,
marshes, and all that seems to form the liquid portion, all of which was
perfectly indifferent to the worthy Michel.
It will be noticed that this hemisphere is thirteen and a-half times
smaller than the terrestrial hemisphere. And yet upon it selenographers
have already counted 50,000 craters. It is a rugged surface worthy of
the unpoetical qualification of "green cheese" which the English have
given it.
When Barbicane pronounced this disobliging name Michel Ardan gave a
bound.
"That is how the Anglo-Saxons of the 19th century treat the beautiful
Diana, the blonde Phoebe, the amiable Isis, the charming Astarte, the
Queen of Night, the daughter of Latona and Jupiter, the younger sister
of the radiant Apollo!"
CHAPTER XII.
OROGRAPHICAL DETAILS.
It has already been pointed out that the direction followed by the
projectile was taking us towards the northern hemisphere of the moon.
The travellers were far from that central point which they ought to have
touched if their trajectory had not suffered an irremediable deviation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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