This must be an ocean. It seems to take in a vast area of the Moon, extending beyond our vision and there are ships floating on the waters, different than any ocean vessels on Earth but they are ships and very large at that.
We decided not to try to cross it but to turn and fly along the shore for a ways, about five hundred miles farther before starting back. During this stretch we have seen quite a few settlements along the shoreline. In the distance, with the aid of glasses, we can see what appears to be another fair sized community. Bob has climbed to fifty thousand feet that we might get a good perspective of the Moon. From this altitude we can see quite a number of settlements. Some of them appear to be about the same size of those we have already visited. Everywhere on the dark side of the Moon there is plenty of water and fertile land. There are many large settlements in the temperate zone where the light side and the dark side meet, but few deep into the dark side.
Now we return to our course flying at an altitude of between thirty-five thousand and forty thousand feet. It is quite remarkable the number of beautiful settlements in this section that we are flying over, quite modernistic. In fact, in comparison, our modernism is behind times.
We have flown one thousand miles since leaving the city we last visited, but because of the circuitous route we have taken in sight-seeing, we are only two hundred miles south of it when George sights a very beautiful city. It looks more beautiful than any we have seen so far. So Bob has lowered to get a better view of it.
It is built in a very large valley with mountains all around it, snow covered mountains on one side and rocky jagged peaks on the other. Here, for the first time, we are feeling a suction force pulling the ship down towards the ground after we had lowered to fifteen hundred feet above the city. We notice there isn't any place in this entire valley that indicates a possible landing field for airships and immediately realize the reason might be that this suction makes aircraft landing dangerous. Bob has had to give our ship all she had to pull out of this force and avoid crashing. We knew then that we could not visit that city.
Reaching an altitude of forty thousand feet we continue on our way, still flying in a southernly direction. After another three hundred miles we find ourselves over the light side of the Moon. Continuing on into this area for about three hundred miles we see a few cliff dweller villages scattered here and there along the sides of the mountains, but the rest of it is very barren and desolate. Our temperature graph shows a heat of one hundred twenty degrees but George and Bob decided to venture still farther south hoping to find some of the larger craters seen from the Earth.
We have flown five hundred miles south of the temperate zone over the light side of the Moon and here we have come upon the big crater, the largest on the Moon. Here our graph registers a temperature of one hundred forty degrees. Dr. Johnston wants to get a good closeup view of this big crater, so Bob is lowering into it. A strange incident is taking place. While we are over the big crater and circling it, our instruments quit working. Bob has gained altitude and is crossing the ridge of the crater to see what has happened. Now the instruments are all working again. We tried this several times, each time with the same results. We also noticed a strange vibration which must have been caused by some sort of a radiation. It wasn't radioactivity for we have instruments for that purpose, but whatever it was, it was strong enough for us to distinctly feel. From our low elevation we can clearly see the mountains within the crater as well as the sides of the crater and they are purely volcanic, not meteoric. There is a lot of lava rock lying all around. Then too, if a meteor had hit here the bottom of the crater would be flat, at least partially flat. There wouldn't be any mountains standing up within it. This same condition exists in all the other craters we have seen.
According to the legends of the Moon which we have been told by the natives, it seems that this side of the Moon had violent volcanic eruptions in the long ago past, yet they weren't solely of lava either, for the formations in some of these craters show a resemblance to ground conditions in Yellowstone Park, which could have been hot water craters at one time.
Now we are approaching another crater among the mountains pretty well ahead. I don't believe it can be seen from the Earth with any telescope for there are too many high mountains around it. This one has vapor, like steam coming out of its center, yet we can see no water in it. Here the graph registers a temperature of one hundred sixty degrees and there is an indication of moisture in the atmosphere while up till now the air has been entirely dry. In spite of the intense heat we would land now, if we could, just to investigate this crater. There is a large plateau which looks as though it might be sand but it is dotted with jagged rocks six to ten feet high. Neither George nor Bob believe that we could successfully land. So we will have to let this one go by.
The chieftain tells us that water is there, very hot water, and that which we see is steam coming out of the crater. According to their history, there was water in all these craters at one time that was hot.