登陆注册
14829400000099

第99章

Michel Ardan used every metaphor that his imagination could supply to designate it by. To him this Tycho was a focus of light, a center of irradiation, a crater vomiting rays. It was the tire of a brilliant wheel, an _asteria_ enclosing the disc with its silver tentacles, an enormous eye filled with flames, a glory carved for Pluto's head, a star launched by the Creator's hand, and crushed against the face of the moon!

Tycho forms such a concentration of light that the inhabitants of the earth can see it without glasses, though at a distance of 240,000 miles! Imagine, then, its intensity to the eye of observers placed at a distance of only fifty miles! Seen through this pure ether, its brilliancy was so intolerable that Barbicane and his friends were obliged to blacken their glasses with the gas smoke before they could bear the splendor. Then silent, scarcely uttering an interjection of admiration, they gazed, they contemplated.

All their feelings, all their impressions, were concentrated in that look, as under any violent emotion all life is concentrated at the heart.

Tycho belongs to the system of radiating mountains, like Aristarchus and Copernicus; but it is of all the most complete and decided, showing unquestionably the frightful volcanic action to which the formation of the moon is due. Tycho is situated in 43@ south latitude, and 12@ east longitude. Its center is occupied by a crater fifty miles broad. It assumes a slightly elliptical form, and is surrounded by an enclosure of annular ramparts, which on the east and west overlook the outer plain from a height of 15,000 feet. It is a group of Mont Blancs, placed round one common center and crowned by radiating beams.

What this incomparable mountain really is, with all the projections converging toward it, and the interior excrescences of its crater, photography itself could never represent.

Indeed, it is during the full moon that Tycho is seen in all its splendor. Then all shadows disappear, the foreshortening of perspective disappears, and all proofs become white-- a disagreeable fact: for this strange region would have been marvelous if reproduced with photographic exactness. It is but a group of hollows, craters, circles, a network of crests;then, as far as the eye could see, a whole volcanic network cast upon this encrusted soil. One can then understand that the bubbles of this central eruption have kept their first form.

Crystallized by cooling, they have stereotyped that aspect which the moon formerly presented when under the Plutonian forces.

The distance which separated the travelers from the annular summits of Tycho was not so great but that they could catch the principal details. Even on the causeway forming the fortifications of Tycho, the mountains hanging on to the interior and exterior sloping flanks rose in stories like gigantic terraces. They appeared to be higher by 300 or 400feet to the west than to the east. No system of terrestrial encampment could equal these natural fortifications. A town built at the bottom of this circular cavity would have been utterly inaccessible.

Inaccessible and wonderfully extended over this soil covered with picturesque projections! Indeed, nature had not left the bottom of this crater flat and empty. It possessed its own peculiar orography, a mountainous system, making it a world in itself. The travelers could distinguish clearly cones, central hills, remarkable positions of the soil, naturally placed to receive the _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of Selenite architecture.

There was marked out the place for a temple, here the ground of a forum, on this spot the plan of a palace, in another the plateau for a citadel; the whole overlooked by a central mountain of 1,500 feet. A vast circle, in which ancient Rome could have been held in its entirety ten times over.

"Ah!" exclaimed Michel Ardan, enthusiastic at the sight; "what a grand town might be constructed within that ring of mountains!

A quiet city, a peaceful refuge, beyond all human misery. How calm and isolated those misanthropes, those haters of humanity might live there, and all who have a distaste for social life!""All! It would be too small for them," replied Barbicane simply.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 平凡的武者

    平凡的武者

    一个人,一条路,一颗心,一生只愿走到武道的巅峰
  • 攻妻不备:狼夫轻轻来

    攻妻不备:狼夫轻轻来

    他是高不可攀的太子爷,她却是个肉球的妈。他对她穷追不舍,她却钟爱玩推拉。他十八般武艺招招用尽,她四两拨千斤套套不吃。好不容易把她娶回家,他说:“老婆,我们再生个孩子呗!”她拍拍屁股走人,“我才不要给你生个小情人。”
  • 圣斗士之雪月穿越奇缘

    圣斗士之雪月穿越奇缘

    雪月穿越到了圣斗士的世界,获得了系统,成了黄金十二宫的师父,得知了自己是传说中的全能座“幻光座”……
  • 小隐书

    小隐书

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 一见如故,再见倾心

    一见如故,再见倾心

    人生有太多的无奈,但阿萝有更多的坚持和不将就。对人生是夹缝中求生,曲线而救国。但对顾一迪,阿萝觉得喜欢的就不要放过。飞蛾扑火但求他转身抱我。”顾一迪,你知道吗,每我觉得好幸福,每一次我不开心的时候都有你陪着。””顾一迪,我真是有病!“”但你是我的药啊!“”顾一迪,我喜欢你,你喜欢我吗?“相遇真的是一种魔咒,从此阿萝的心只为一个人千千万万遍。
  • 武林萌主:废柴娇妻要逆袭

    武林萌主:废柴娇妻要逆袭

    她是将门千金,她是南梦之,哥哥疼着,爹爹爱着,却唯独不能修炼,成为了将军府上唯一的例外。她是绝世神偷,她是南梦栀,冷漠无情,杀伐果断,却唯独爱上了他,成为了他上位的一个垫脚石。阴差阳错,她们互换了身份,一世骄傲的南梦栀又怎能容许自己的废柴身份,她开始寻求能让自己再次修炼的办法,却意外的发现,自己的身世没有那么简单!?为什么魔尊大人频频来犯?为什么天神大人总献殷勤?为什么绝世美男绕身边转?是真心爱她?或是为了名利?还是,她那不为人知的神秘身世?且看女主如何解开自己的身世之谜,玩转异世!
  • 萌翻豪门:国民老公是我的

    萌翻豪门:国民老公是我的

    “老公,我来啦!”“橙子,你……别过来!”甜橙没有扑/倒高大boss之前,绞尽脑汁想要扑/倒他,终于……甜橙一直以为高大boss是只披着狼皮的羊,高大boss身体力行告诉她,原来她错了,高大boss是只披着羊皮的狼!“老公,床塌了,明晚再来!”“老公,闺蜜失恋,我要陪她,明天再回来!”“老公,我要出国留学,五年后一定回来的!”高大boss欲哭无泪,只好重披羊皮:“老婆,求扑/倒!”
  • 崩坏世界:仙路

    崩坏世界:仙路

    我等在走向绝望,在绝望中寻找希望,在希望中铸就辉煌。
  • 兽人夫君求放过!

    兽人夫君求放过!

    她有人人羡慕的外表,天赋,家族,可没人知道因为她的家族作孽,她的父母被连累,追杀,而仅仅五岁的她走丢,变成全能杀手。18岁那年,是她这个年纪的孩子应该开心的日子,而她被那个所谓的修仙隐世家族接走。她也很开心因为她以为有家了,可没想到那只是一场梦,一场遥不可及的梦,那个家族里的人贪婪自私,冷血。梦醒了,终究还是要面对现实。她决定要隐世深山老林过一辈子,带着空间搜刮一切要用到的东西。可没想到在帐篷里住一晚。第二天居然会到一个完全不熟悉的地方。居然穿越了…………
  • 世界科学技术百科

    世界科学技术百科

    本书是一部介绍科学方面的科普读物,系统地向广大青少年读者介绍了五彩缤纷的科学世界,以此引导青少年崇尚科学,破除迷信;养成关注科学的习惯;形成科学的态度和价值取向。