“Are not such colors an indication of something living there?”
“It may be so—an indication, for instance, of the existence of ‘lunar grass,’ the mention of which so amused you a little while ago.”
“Oh, it was not the ‘grass’ that amused me, but your unexpected way of introducing it. I want to be convinced that there is grass there, and a great many other things besides grass. But I am not yet satisfied concerning that unique peak in Aristarchus. ‘Dazzling white’ you say is its description in the scale of tints. That excites my curiosity immensely. I think you have told me already that it cannot be snow, but you have spoken of the possibility of crystals and of metal. Do you know, I like the idea of ascribing the phenomenon to metal. It recalls something that I read in childhood about the first discoverer of a silver mine in Mexico. As I remember the story, an Aztec hunter, chasing his game across a mountain, seized upon a bush to aid him, and the roots giving way disclosed a glittering mass of silver. Why not let me imagine that the peak of Aristarchus is composed of pure silver?”
“There is no harm in imagining that if you wish to do so. But then your imagination, or rather your knowledge, should go a little farther and recall the fact that silver does not remain dazzling bright when exposed.”
“Ah, but you say there is no air, no water, no rains, no moisture on the moon. Under such circumstances might not a metal remain bright?”
“It is possible, but I hardly think that it would. It is likely that other corroding influences exist. A better explanation, I think, is afforded by supposing that the reflecting surface is simply composed of a rocky mineral, resembling in its power of reflection a mass of quartz crystals or imbedded planes of mica. There is no absolute impossibility involved in thinking that it may be simply white rock.”
“Why not say marble—a gigantic Carrara mountain on the moon?”
“I fear that that would involve a geological history for the lunar world for which we have not sufficient warrant in observed facts. I prefer to assume a volcanic origin for the phenomenon. Since you are so interested in the mystery of Aristarchus I may add that a part of the floor and the inner side of the ring are also extremely bright, but not quite so bright as the central peak. That alone stands at the top of the scale. Putting the peak at 10°, Mr. Elger finds that the other brilliant parts of Aristarchus possess only 9½° of brightness. Yet the whole interior is so glistening that when the sunlight falls vertically it almost resembles the inside of a crystal cup, and details are hidden in the glare.
“Now please look at the ‘Bay of Rainbows’ in the photograph before us. Cape Laplace at its western end lies close to the terminator and appears as a minute speck of light. The great bow-shaped shore is clearly defined, the level surface within being very dark and the highlands around it comparatively bright. The crater mountain Bianchini you will recognize near the center of the bow. Several other similar crateriform mountains are visible toward the north and east. In this light the surface of the moon eastward from the North Pole appears as rough and broken with craters and crater plains as we saw in the earlier pictures that it is toward the west.
“Before directing our attention to photograph No. 20, let us return for a moment to Aristarchus. When speaking of that formation a few minutes ago I interrupted myself in order to give you the scale of tints on the moon, which demonstrated the unique brilliance of the peak inclosed by the ring. I intended to point out to you then the fact that in photograph No. 19 we see, for the first time, not only the ring of Aristarchus but its curious neighbor Herodotus. A light streak, which we observed in an earlier picture, seems to connect the two. It is better, however, to notice this now because in turning from No. 19 to No. 20 you will perceive once more a change in the appearance of Aristarchus and its neighborhood. In No. 20 Aristarchus is distinctly more conspicuous. The night has advanced during almost exactly twenty-four hours, having in the meantime swept across the entire length of the ‘Bay of Rainbows,’ which we now no longer see. If we had been using a telescope during that interval we should have beheld a very interesting spectacle, for sunset on the ‘Bay of Rainbows’ is quite as remarkable, although in a very different way, as sunset on the Bay of Naples. The astronomer, seated amid the lonely gloom of his observatory dome, and watching the change of light and illumination on the surface of the moon, has many an hour of solitary enjoyment of aspects of nature that are quite impossible on the earth, and that frequently lure him into poetic meditations which find no place in his notebook.”