-the awfulness of the scene or the distressed cries of the negroes. Upwards of one hundred lay prostrate on the ground, some speechless, and some with the bitterest cries, but with their hands raised, imploring God to save the world and them. The scene was truly awful; for never did rain fall much thicker than the meteors fell towards the earth; east, west, north and south it was the same."

Almost Hit by a Meteor.

A remarkable story is related by Captain Swart, of the Dutch bark, J. P. A. The Captain thinks that his theory, derived from a recent experience, will account for the sudden disappearance of many vessels at sea. He says that March 19, 1887, his ship, while in latitude 37.39 and longitude 57 west, met a heavy storm. At about five o'clock in the afternoon a meteor was observed flying through the air.

It looked like two balls, one very black and the other brightly illuminated. The latter fell, and as it seemed that it would strike the vessel she was hove to under storm sails. The meteor dropped into the sea close along side, making in its flight a tremendous roaring noise. Before reaching the water, the upper atmosphere was darkened, while below and on board everything appeared like a sea of fire. The force of the meteor in striking the water caused heavy breakers, which washed over the vessel, making her roll in a dangerous manner. At the same time the atmosphere. became uncomfortably warm and the air was full of sulphur. Immediately afterwards solid lumps of ice fell on the decks, and the decks and rigging became coated with an icy crust, caused by the immense evaporation.

The barometer during the phenomenon oscillated so violently that no reading could be taken. After close examination of the vessel and rigging no damage was found on deck, but on the side where the meteor fell into the water the ship appeared all black and some of the copper sheathing was blistered.

CHAPTER III.

A WORLD BURNED OUT AND DEAD.

The Earth Cushioned with Air-The Weight of Every Human Being Seventeen Tons-Our Nearest Planetary Neighbor-Time Required by a Railway Train to Reach the Moon -Lunar Mountains-Moon Torn by Furious Volcanoes-The Fires Extinct-The Surface Cold-Craters and Caverns-Lunar Seas-A Desert World -Eternal Silence-No Air nor Water-No Sky-Young Lady in the Moon-Perpetual Changes-White-Crested Mountains-The Moon's Attractive Features-The Moon a One-Sided Creature-Strange Conjectures as to the Side Turned Away-The First Quarter-Immense Cavities in the Moon's SurfaceMeasuring Craters-Excitement over First Discoveries-Droll Superstitions—A Satellite Supposed to Rule almost Everything.

JUR planet is entirely enveloped by a thick layer of air, which forms round it the softest cushion imaginable. Notwithstanding its apparent lightness, this atmosphere weighs heavily upon all bodies on the earth, and exerts greater pressure in proportion as they offer a larger surface. Physiologists consider that each of us has a weight of about 35,300 pounds to support, but this great weight is not usually felt, because it is counterbalanced by a counter action equal in all directions, so that the one destroys the other.

The earth is not rich in respect to satellites, possessing as it does only one, which, however, is of dimensions ample enough as compared to it; this is the moon, the faithful companion of its course. Other planets, it is true, like Jupiter and Saturn, are more richly endowed, and have from four to eight satellites; but again there are others which do not possess any, as is the case with Venus and Mercury.

The sole and faithful satellite of the earth, formed by a fragment detached from it, now cold and wan, rolled round us when it began, a red and blazing sphere, vomiting torrents of fire from its whole surface. Whilst gravitation was regulating its form and path, the moon, in the course of thousands of years, exhausted its fires to show us at last its pale and silvery face, the sad luminary of our nights, the splendid nocturnal mirror which reflects to us, pale and cold, the divergent rays of the sun.

Compared to the immeasurable distances of the nebulæ and stars, the space which separates us from our satellite is quite insignificant; she is our next-door neighbor and the eye can so clearly discern her form and

But this insignificant

peculiarities, that she seems almost to touch us. distance, abstractly considered, is yet vast enough. The distance from the earth to the moon is about 237,000 miles. If it were possible to get there by means of steam, it would require one year and about three hundred and twenty-two days for a locomotive starting from our globe and travelling at a high rate of speed to reach the moon and land its passengers; yet this is but a step compared to the distances of the stars.

VOLCANIC CRATERS ON THE MOON'S SURFACE AT SUNSET.

The moon is in every part oughened with eminences of different shapes, but they only very rarely group themselves into mountain chains comparable to those of our globe. The Alps, Caucasus, and the Apennines represent the principal ones. Certain isolated summits have received the names of celebrated men, but those of past times have been chosen in order not to excite any jealousy; we travel from the Mountain of Aristotle to that of Hipparchus, from that of Ptolemy to that of Copernicus. The astronomers have very properly not forgotten their claims.

The highest lunar mountains attain an altitude which surpasses most terrestrial elevations, a fact which may well astonish us. Generally they do not rise beyond 22,750 feet. But in proportion to the size of the planet, we may say that the mountains in the moon are much loftier than those of the earth. The summits of Mount Dorfel are 24,700 feet above the valleys which environ it, whilst the crest of Mont Blanc only rises 15,632 feet above the level of the sea.

Probably no

These even Some of those

Most of the mountains of our pale companion are of volcanic origin, and its surface has been so shattered by subterranean fires that in many places the craters are heaped up close beside each other. star was ever so horribly torn by the fury of volcanoes. attain proportions far beyond what is seen in our globe. lunar craters are four or five leagues in diameter, and the gaping mouth of the volcano of Aristillus, still more prodigious, is ten leagues from one ridge to the other! Our glasses enable us to see these extinct craters in such proportions, that none of their details escape us; whilst, were we on the moon, our telescopes, according to Humboldt, would scarcely enable us to make out terrestrial volcanoes.

Immense Lunar Caverns.

Seen from the earth many lunar volcanoes appear very much depressed, and the edges of their craters resemble so many flattened rings, projecting very little above the plains. Some regions are so riddled with them that their mouths touch. Others surmount lofty summits, and their crenelated ramparts surround enormous excavations, which pierce deep into the mountains below the level of the plains.

Formerly the dark patches which cover part of the moon's surface were considered as representing lunar seas, but at present men are disposed to look upon them as only immense plains. The first astronomers gave them names full of poetry. There was the Sea of Tranquility, the Sea of Clouds, the Sea of Nectar, the Ocean of Tempests, and the Sea of Serenity.

The rocky and shattered soil of our satellite is perfectly bare; not a blade of grass grows there, not a flower opens. Totally deprived of water and air, life is an impossibility. A threefold death would overtake the least animal that happened to alight there; a squirrel would perish of hunger, thirst, and asphyxia! In these cold and horrid realms of the moon, everything is plunged in torpor and silence; the echoes are mute and the breath of a zephyr never plays round the summits of the rugged mountains.

By means of our instruments, which have now been brought to so

great perfection, we can pry into the minutest details of our satellite, and examine them with as much accuracy as if it were some distant view on earth; hence we can to a certain extent make out its geological disposition. The precision of our glasses has been carried to such a pitch, that we could with them easily perceive large buildings, if any existed on the lunar surface; we could even make out troops of animals moving about. It would, it is true, be impossible to perceive one of its inhabitants traversing the valleys of its silver crescent, but if the much spoken of Selenites existed, we should certainly perceive their movements when they' were collected into dense masses. According to Humboldt, however, there is only a noiseless, silent desert there.

Sir Walter Scott gives us in one of his fine poetical outbursts this apostrophe to the lunar world:

Hail to thy cold and clouded beam,

Pale pilgrim of the troubled sky!

Hail, though the mists that o'er thee stream

Lend to thy brow their sullen dye!

How should thy pure and peaceful eye

Untroubled view our scenes below?
Or how a tearless beam supply!

To light a world of war and woe?

There is a great contrast, not only apparent but real, between the serene tranquility of the lunar disk and the great movements which are ceaselessly carried on on the surface of our world. On approaching the moon nothing. is seen of the physical causes which make the earth a vast laboratory wherein a thousand elements contend or unite with each other. There are none of those tumultuous tempests which sometimes sweep over our undulated plains; none of those hurricanes which descend in waterspouts to be swallowed up in the depth of the sea; no wind blows, no cloud rises. to the heavens. There white trains of cloudy vapors are not seen, nor those laden masses with heavy cohorts; the rain never falls; and neither snow, nor hail, nor any of the meteorological phenomena are manifested there.

But, on the other hand, the magnificent tints which color our sky at sunrise and twilight, the radiation of the heated atmosphere, are never seen there; if winds and tempests never blow, neither is there the balmy breeze which descends upon our coasts. In this kingdom of sovereign immobility, the lightest zephyr never comes to caress the hill-tops; the sky remains eternally asleep in a calm incomparably more complete than that of our hottest days when not a leaf moves in the air. This is because on the surface of this strange world there is no atmosphere. From this privation results a state of things difficult to realize.