“What does it resemble? Do you see the smaller craters within the walls of the larger one?”
“Yes, sir—I see ’em. And the one around ’em looks like where they vaccinated me on the arm, when the place where the doctor scratched got sore and was all eaten out.”
“Exactly, Joshua! Fine! A remarkable comparison. Well, Joshua, you are observing the largest of the craters that are known to be on the moon. This is the immense walled plain of Clavius. It is a hundred and forty-three miles at its greatest length, and its floor covers an area of sixteen thousand square miles. The State of Rhode Island would scarcely cover its interior area. The crater-studded walls about it have an elevation of seventeen thousand feet, which is more than a thousand feet higher than the summit of Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in Europe.
“Now just a little above the center of the exposed area—er—of that portion of the moon which is revealed to-night—you will see Tycho quite plainly. This is another immense crater, fifty-four miles in diameter, and with a depth of seventeen thousand feet. Lifting its summit from this immense pit is a central mountain, which rises to an elevation of six thousand feet. Do you follow me, Joshua?”
“Yes, sir—I guess so.”
Mr. Clegg became forgetful of his surroundings, forgetful of his pupil. Carried away by his own lecture-like recital of the wonders viewed by Joshua, he went on rapidly:
“There you view high walls and peaks thousands of feet above the level of the surface. They catch the first gleams of the rising sun, while many deep abysses yet remain in somber lunar night. Many of the dish-shaped plains of this rugged region, once huge pots of boiling rock or lava, are distinguished by no black shadows, having been refilled to the rims; though a few of them still retain walls high enough to throw black shadows eastward on the plains. Conspicuous against the southeastern wall of Clavius is the vast black hole of the ring-mountain Blancanus, fifty miles in diameter, at the bottom of whose abysmal cavity no sunlight has ever shone—the deepest, most cavernous pit known to man. Were the highest mountain-peak on the earth—Mount Everest—standing on the forever darkened floor of this pit, its lofty summit would rise but five thousand feet above the ramparts of the encircling mountain-ring; for the black hole is approximately twenty-four thousand feet in depth—about four thousand feet deeper than Mount McKinley is high.”
Thus he talked on and on until young Joshua’s mind was a confused blank, though his soul was leaping with happiness. And when at last the master came down to earth and remarked that the hour was late, Joshua followed him down the dark stairway without a word.
“Go back to your bed,” whispered Clegg as they reached the foot of the flight. “To-morrow I shall give you photographs of the various regions of the moon and lend you Flammarion’s Astronomy. Be patient, Joshua—you will learn all that I know, and much more when you become a man. That’s all for the present, Fifty-six thirty-five.”
That was the beginning of it. Now the boy Joshua, robbed of his heritage, had a goal to work for, and he worked. Learning the common school branches that he detested was the necessary means to a glorious end, and before long he had proved to Clegg’s unbounded satisfaction that with him the study of science was no mere boyish whim. No other reward could have been offered which would have caused him to apply himself so assiduously to arithmetic, grammar, and other distasteful branches. More, he withstood many temptations to enter into youthful pranks with the other boys, and when he stood aloof repeatedly they grew to consider him a “mamma’s boy,” and treated him accordingly. In that day the word “tony” stood in slang as an adjective to describe one who considered himself above the common herd, and it soon was applied to the young astronomer. They called him Tony among themselves, but functionally he remained Fifty-six thirty-five to his last day in the House of Refuge.