The Moon: A Popular Treatise

by Garrett Putman Serviss

Accordingly, after a few minutes, I presented to her these two diagrams, remarking that it should be borne in mind that the two sketches were not made on the same relative scale. “I was compelled,” I said, “to change the true proportions in the section of the lunar volcano, for if I had drawn them as they are in fact, the width of the basin would have been enormous in proportion to its depth. You will recall that I told you that such rings as Albategnius and Maurolycus are a hundred miles and even more in diameter, while their depth does not exceed two or three miles. It results from this necessary falsification of proportions in the sketch that the terrestrial volcano, although so widely different in form, appears comparable in magnitude with the lunar one. But the fact is that you could take a dozen of the largest volcanic mountains on the earth and throw them into one of the great lunar rings without filling it.”

“I am the more astonished by what you say,” remarked my friend, “because you have already told me that the moon is so much smaller than the earth. How does it happen, then, that her volcanoes are so much larger? I should think that in a little world all things would be small in proportion.”

“It is quite natural to think so,” I replied, “until you reflect upon the consequences of the smaller force of gravitation on a small world. I told you last evening that gravitation on the moon, is only one sixth as powerful as it is on the earth, and you will recall that one consequence which I pointed out was that you would weigh only twenty pounds if you were on the moon. Since the same reasoning applies to all objects in the lunar world, it is clear that a similar force exerted there would be able to produce enormously greater effects, as for instance in the formation of vast hollows or depressions, by violent explosions, the products of which would be thrown to immense distances. Some selenographers, which is a term applied to those who study the features of the lunar world, have suggested that in this cause alone is to be found the explanation of the giant lunar ring mountains. At some remote period of the past, according to them, the volcanic forces of the moon reached a maximum of activity and energy. The lava, cinders, ashes, and other products of ejection, were hurled to a height of scores of miles, and when this fell back at a great distance from the centers of eruption these were piled up in huge rings, fifty, eighty, or a hundred miles in diameter, while the surface of the moon within the rings sank in consequence of the withdrawal of the material thus ejected. To account for the existence of the central mountains so often found in the middle of the rings, it has been suggested that at a much later period, when the volcanic energy had become comparatively insignificant, as a result of the cooling of the interior of the moon, less violent explosions, not greater than many that have occurred on the earth, took place, and by these the central peaks were formed.”

“You are going to think me too romantic, or too imaginative, again,” said my friend, with a smile, “but I cannot prevent myself from wondering what the inhabitants of the moon did and thought while all those marvelous things were happening.”

“I have not said that there were inhabitants of the moon.”

“No, but you have confessed that there might have been inhabitants, some time, and I should like to know whether they were there when those terrible volcanoes were formed.”

“If they were,” I replied, “they could not have survived such a universal upheaval as the surface of the moon has undergone. You have seen in the photographs that the great rings and smaller craters are scattered thickly over the moon. It is true that comparatively few are found in the level expanses called ‘seas,’ but if those regions were covered with water they could only have been inhabited by beings provided with gills and fins.”

“How long ago did these explosions occur?”

“I cannot tell you, except that it must have been many ages in the past; so long ago, indeed, that the whole course of human history seems but a day in comparison.”

“Then,” said my friend with animation, “there has been time enough since that dreadful period for inhabitants to develop upon the moon, has there not?”