I paused and gazed a long time on this wonderful, but desert, scene, and then, longing to expand my view, I strove to fly. But in vain. There was no atmosphere to support me, so I had to return to my car and to set its motive forces at work so as to cast off the gravitating power of the great orb about me and to float in ether over its surface. I passed over the ridge of Tycho to some four miles' altitude above the plains and crater-valleys. Again ring beyond ring of mountain circles—some glistening white, some shaded—opened to my eyes. It was a grand scene of confusion such as Alps or Himalayas cannot approach. I first resolved to turn towards the south, to the great ring of Clavius,—almost as large as Wales, with peaks as lofty as the Andes, and with ninety craters in its vast expanse,—about as many volcanoes as surface for the whole earth. I mounted its lofty rampart, and resting on the highest peak, as high as Chimborazo, i.e., some 23,000 feet, contemplated the superb and yet most strange scene.
These ring-mountains of the moon are almost as large as countries on the earth, and Clavius was more like a Swiss canton than a crater. Vast forces had been here at work! Were they the huge convulsions that destroyed life on
