Fig. 62.—Determining the height of a lunar mountain.
Two things, however, need to be borne in mind in this connection. On the earth we measure the heights of mountains above sea level, while on the moon there is no sea, and our 6,600 feet is simply the height of the mountain top above the level of that particular point in the terminator, from which we measure its distance. So too it is evident from the appearance of things, that the sunlight, instead of just touching the top of the particular mountain whose height we have measured, really extends some little distance down from its summit, and the 6,600 feet is therefore the elevation of the lowest point on the mountains to which the sunlight reaches. The peak itself may be several hundred feet higher, and our photograph must be taken at the exact moment when this peak appears in the lunar morning or disappears in the evening if we are to measure the altitude of the mountain's summit. Measure the height of the most northern visible mountain of the Caucasus range. This is one of the outlying spurs of the great mountain Calippus, whose principal peak, 19,000 feet high, is shown in [Fig. 55] as the brightest part of the Caucasus range.
The highest peak of the lunar Apennines, Huyghens, has an altitude of 18,000 feet, and the Leibnitz and Doerfel Mountains, near the south pole of the moon, reach an altitude 50 per cent greater than this, and are probably the highest peaks on the moon. This falls very little short of the highest mountain on the earth, although the moon is much smaller than the earth, and these mountains are considerably higher than anything on the western continent of the earth.
The vagueness of outline of the terminator makes it difficult to measure from it with precision, and somewhat more accurate determinations of the heights of lunar mountains can be obtained by measuring the length of the shadows which they cast, and the depths of craters may also be measured by means of the shadows which fall into them.
105. Craters.—[Fig. 63] shows a typical lunar crater, and conveys a good idea of the ruggedness of the lunar landscape. Compare the appearance of this crater with the following generalizations, which are based upon the accurate measurement of many such:
A. A crater is a real depression in the surface of the moon, surrounded usually by an elevated ring which rises above the general level of the region outside, while the bottom of the crater is about an equal distance below that level.
B. Craters are shallow, their diameters ranging from five times to more than fifty times their depth. Archimedes, whose diameter we found to be 50 miles, has an average depth of about 4,000 feet below the crest of its surrounding wall, and is relatively a shallow crater.
