CHAPTER FIVE
_THE FOOTPRINT ON THE MOON_
To prevent accidents, it had been arranged that the ships should keep aconsiderable distance apart. Some of them gradually drifted away, until,on account of the neutral tint of their sides, they were swallowed up inthe abyss of space. Still it was possible to know where every member ofthe squadron was through the constant interchange of signals. These, asI have explained, were effected by means of mirrors flashing back thelight of the sun.
But, although it was now unceasing day for us, yet, there being noatmosphere to diffuse the sun's light, the stars were visible to us justas at night upon the earth, and they shone with extraordinary splendoragainst the intense black background of the firmament. The lights ofsome of the more distant ships of our squadron were not brighter thanthe stars in whose neighborhood they seemed to be. In some cases it wasonly possible to distinguish between the light of a ship and that of astar by the fact that the former was continually flashing while the starwas steady in its radiance.
The most uncanny effect was produced by the absence of atmosphere aroundus. Inside the car, where there was air, the sunlight, streaming throughone or more of the windows, was diffused and produced ordinary daylight.
But when we ventured outside we could only see things by halves. Theside of the car that the sun's rays touched was visible, the other sidewas invisible, the light from the stars not making it bright enough toaffect the eye in contrast with the sun-illumined half.
As I held up my arm before my eyes, half of it seemed to be shaved offlengthwise; a companion on the deck of the ship looked like half a man.So the other electrical ships near us appeared as half ships, only theillumined sides being visible.
We had now gotten so far away that the earth had taken on the appearanceof a heavenly body like the moon. Its colors had become all blended intoa golden-reddish hue, which overspread nearly its entire surface, exceptat the poles, where there were broad patches of white. It was marvelousto look at this huge orb behind us, while far beyond it shone theblazing sun like an enormous star in the blackest of nights. In theopposite direction appeared the silver orb of the moon, and scatteredall around were millions of brilliant stars, amid which, like fireflies,flashed and sparkled the signal lights of the squadron.
A danger that might easily have been anticipated, that perhaps had beenanticipated, but against which it had been difficult, if not impossible,to provide, presently manifested itself.
Looking out of a window toward the right, I suddenly noticed the lightsof a distant ship darting about in a curious curve. Instantly afterward,another member of the squadron, nearer by, behaved in the sameinexplicable manner. Then two or three of the floating cars seemed to beviolently drawn from their courses and hurried rapidly in the directionof the flagship. Immediately I perceived a small object, luridlyflaming, which seemed to move with immense speed in our direction.
The truth instantly flashed upon my mind, and I shouted to the otheroccupants of the car:
"A meteor!"
And such indeed it was. We had met this mysterious wanderer in space ata moment when we were moving in a direction at right angles to the pathit was pursuing around the sun. Small as it was, and its diameterprobably did not exceed a single foot, it was yet an independent littleworld, and as such a member of the solar system. Its distance from thesun being so near that of the earth, I knew that its velocity, assumingit to be travelling in a nearly circular orbit, must be about eighteenmiles in a second. With this velocity, then, it plunged like aprojectile shot by some mysterious enemy in space directly through oursquadron. It had come and was gone before one could utter a sentence ofthree words. Its appearance, and the effect it had produced upon theships in whose neighborhood it passed, indicated that it bore an intenseand tremendous charge of electricity. How it had become thus charged Icannot pretend to say. I simply record the fact. And this charge, it wasevident, was opposite in polarity to that which the ships of thesquadron bore. It therefore exerted an attractive influence upon themand thus drew them after it.
I had just time to think how lucky it was that the meteor did not strikeany of us, when, glancing at a ship just ahead, I perceived that anaccident had occurred. The ship swayed violently from its course,dazzling flashes played around it, and two or three of the men formingits crew appeared for an instant on its exterior, wildly gesticulating,but almost instantly falling prone.
It was evident at a glance that the car had been struck by the meteor.How serious the damage might be we could not instantly determine. Thecourse of our ship was immediately altered, the electric polarity waschanged and we rapidly approached the disabled car.
The men who had fallen lay upon its surface. One of the heavy circularglasses covering a window had been smashed to atoms. Through this themeteor had passed, killing two or three men who stood in its course.Then it had crashed through the opposite side of the car, and, passingon, had disappeared into space. The store of air contained in the carhad immediately rushed out through the openings, and when two or threeof us, having donned our air-tight suits as quickly as possible, enteredthe wrecked car we found all its inmates stretched upon the floor in acondition of asphyxiation. They, as well as those who lay upon theexterior, were immediately removed to the flagship, restoratives wereapplied, and, fortunately, our aid had come so promptly that the livesof all of them were saved. But life had fled from the mangled bodies ofthose who had stood directly in the path of the fearful projectile.
_"Through this the meteor had passed, killing two orthree men who stood in its course."_]
This strange accident had been witnessed by several of the members ofthe fleet, and they quickly drew together, in order to inquire for theparticulars. As the flagship was now overcrowded by the addition of somany men to its crew, Mr. Edison had them distributed among the othercars. Fortunately it happened that the disintegrators contained in thewrecked car were not injured. Mr. Edison thought that it would bepossible to repair the car itself, and for that purpose he had itattached to the flagship in order that it might be carried on as far asthe moon. The bodies of the dead were transported with it, as it wasdetermined, instead of committing them to the fearful deep of space,where they would have wandered forever, or else have fallen like meteorsupon the earth, to give them interment in the lunar soil.
As we now rapidly approached the moon the change which the appearance ofits surface underwent was no less wonderful than that which the surfaceof the earth had presented in the reverse order while we were recedingfrom it. From a pale silver orb, shining with comparative faintnessamong the stars, it slowly assumed the appearance of a vast mountainousdesert. As we drew nearer its colors became more pronounced; the greatflat regions appeared darker; the mountain peaks shone more brilliantly.The huge chasms seemed bottomless and blacker than midnight. Graduallyseparate mountains appeared. What seemed like expanses of snow andimmense glaciers streaming down their sides sparkled with greatbrilliancy in the perpendicular rays of the sun. Our motion had nowassumed the aspect of falling. We seemed to be dropping from animmeasurable height, and with an inconceivable velocity, straight downupon those giant peaks.
Here and there curious lights glowed upon the mysterious surface of themoon. Where the edge of the moon cut the sky behind it, it was brokenand jagged with mountain masses. Vast crater rings overspread itssurface, and in some of these I imagined I could perceive a luridillumination coming out of their deepest cavities, and the curling ofmephitic vapors around their terrible jaws.
We were approaching that part of the moon which is known to theastronomers as the Bay of Rainbows. Here a huge semi-circular region, assmooth almost as the surface of a prairie, lay beneath our eyes,stretching southward into a vast ocean-like expanse, while on the northit was enclosed by an enormous range of mountain cliffs, risingperpendicularly to a height of many thousands of feet, and rent andgashed in every direction by forces which seemed at some remote periodto have labored at tearing this little world in pieces.
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bsp; It was a fearful spectacle; a dead and mangled world, too dreadful tolook upon. The idea of the death of the moon was, of course, not a newone to many of us. We had long been aware that the earth's satellite wasa body which had passed beyond the stage of life, if indeed it had everbeen a life supporting globe; but none of us were prepared for theterrible spectacle which now smote our eyes.
At each end of the semi-circular ridge that encloses the Bay of Rainbowsthere is a lofty promontory. That at the northwestern extremity had longbeen known to the astronomers under the name of Cape Laplace. The otherpromontory, at the southeastern termination, is called Cape Heraclides.It was toward the latter that we were approaching, and by interchange ofsignals all the members of the squadron had been informed that CapeHeraclides was to be our rendezvous upon the moon.
I may say that I had been somewhat familiar with the scenery of thispart of the lunar world, for I had often studied it from the earth witha telescope, and I had thought that if there was any part of the moonwhere one might, with fair expectation of success, look for inhabitants,or if not inhabitants, at least for relics of life no longer existantthere, this would surely be the place. It was, therefore, with no smalldegree of curiosity, notwithstanding the unexpectedly frightful andrepulsive appearance that the surface of the moon presented, that I nowsaw myself rapidly approaching the region concerning whose secrets myimagination had so often busied itself. When Mr. Edison and I had paidour previous trip to the moon on our first experimental trip of theelectrical ship we had landed at a point on its surface remote fromthis, and, as I have before explained, we then made no effort toinvestigate its secrets. But now it was to be different, and we were atlength to see something of the wonders of the moon.
I had often on the earth drawn a smile from my friends by showing themCape Heraclides with a telescope, and calling their attention to thefact that the outline of the peak terminating the cape was such as topresent a remarkable resemblance to a human face, unmistakably afeminine countenance, seen in profile, and possessing no small degree ofbeauty. To my astonishment, this curious human semblance still remainedwhen we had approached so close to the moon that the mountains formingthe cape filled nearly the whole field of view of the window from whichI was watching it. The resemblance, indeed, was most startling.
"Can this indeed be Diana herself?" I said half-aloud, but instantlyafterward I was laughing at my fancy, for Mr. Edison had overhead me andexclaimed, "Where is she?"
"Who?"
"Diana."
"Why, there," I said, pointing to the moon. But lo! the appearance wasgone even while I spoke. A swift change had taken place in the line ofsight by which we were viewing it, and the likeness had disappeared inconsequence.
A few moments later my astonishment was revived, but the cause this timewas a very different one. We had been dropping rapidly toward themountains, and the electrician in charge of the car was swiftly andconstantly changing his potential, and, like a pilot who feels his wayinto an unknown harbor, endeavoring to approach the moon in such amanner that no hidden peril should surprise us. As we thus approached Isuddenly perceived, crowning the very apex of the lofty peak near thetermination of the cape, the ruins of what appeared to be an ancientwatch tower. It was evidently composed of Cyclopean blocks larger thanany that I had ever seen even among the ruins of Greece, Egypt and AsiaMinor.
_"As we thus approached I suddenly perceived, crowningthe very apex of the lofty peak near the termination of the cape, theruins of what appeared to be the ancient watch-tower."_]
Here, then, was visible proof that the moon had been inhabited, althoughprobably it was not inhabited now. I cannot describe the exultantfeeling which took possession of me at this discovery. It settled somuch that learned men had been disputing about for centuries.
"What will they say," I exclaimed, "when I show them a photograph ofthat?"
Below the peak, stretching far to right and left, lay a barren beachwhich had evidently once been washed by sea waves, because it was markedby long curved ridges such as the advancing and retiring tide leavesupon the shore of the ocean.
This beach sloped rapidly outward and downward toward a profound abyss,which had once, evidently, been the bed of a sea, but which now appearedto us simply as the empty, yawning shell of an ocean that had longvanished.
It was with no small difficulty, and only after the expenditure ofconsiderable time, that all the floating ships of the squadron weregradually brought to rest on this lone mountain top of the moon. Inaccordance with my request, Mr. Edison had the flagship moored in theinterior of the great ruined watch tower that I have described. Theother ships rested upon the slope of the mountain around us.
Although time pressed, for we knew that the safety of the earth dependedupon our promptness in attacking Mars, yet it was determined to remainhere at least two or three days in order that the wrecked car might berepaired. It was found also that the passage of the highly electrifiedmeteor had disarranged the electrical machinery in some of the othercars, so that there were many repairs to be made besides those needed torestore the wreck.
Moreover, we must bury our unfortunate companions who had been killed bythe meteor. This, in fact, was the first work that we performed. Strangewas the sight, and stranger our feelings, as here on the surface of aworld distant from the earth, and on soil which had never before beenpressed by the foot of man, we performed that last ceremony of respectwhich mortals pay to mortality. In the ancient beach at the foot of thepeak we made a deep opening, and there covered forever the faces of ourfriends, leaving them to sleep among the ruins of empires, and among thegraves of races which had vanished probably ages before Adam and Eveappeared in Paradise.
While the repairs were being made several scientific expeditions weresent out in various directions across the moon. One went westward toinvestigate the great ring of Plato, and the lunar Alps. Another crossedthe ancient Sea of Showers toward the inner Appenines.
One started to explore the immense Crater of Copernicus, which, yawningfifty miles across, presents a wonderful appearance even from thedistance of the earth. The ship in which I, myself, had the good fortuneto embark, was bound for the mysterious inner mountain Aristarchus.
Before these expeditions started, a careful exploration had been made inthe neighborhood of Cape Heraclides. But, except that the broken wallsof the watch tower on the peak, composed of blocks of enormous size, hadevidently been the work of creatures endowed with human intelligence, noremains were found indicating the former presence of inhabitants uponthis part of the moon.
But along the shore of the old sea, just where the so-called Bay ofRainbows separates itself from the abyss of the Sea of Showers, therewere found some stratified rocks in which the fascinated eyes of theexplorer beheld the clear imprint of a gigantic human foot, measuringfive feet in length from toe to heel.
The most minute search failed to reveal another trace of the presence ofthe ancient giant, who had left the impress of his foot in the wet sandsof the beach here so many millions of years ago that even theimagination of the geologists shrank from the task of attempting to fixthe precise period.
Around this gigantic footprint gathered most of the scientific membersof the expedition, wearing their oddly shaped air-tight suits, connectedwith telephonic wires, and the spectacle, but for the impressiveness ofthe discovery, would have been laughable in the extreme. Bending overthe mark in the rock, nodding their heads together, pointing with theirawkwardly accoutered arms, they looked like an assemblage ofantidiluvian monsters collected around their prey. Their disappointmentover the fact that no other marks of anything resembling humanhabitation could be discovered was very great.
Still this footprint in itself was quite sufficient, as they alldeclared, to settle the question of the former habitation of the moon,and it would serve for the production of many a learned volume aftertheir return to earth, even if no further discoveries should be made inother parts of the lunar world.
It was the hope of making such othe
r discoveries that led to thedispatch of the other various expeditions which I have already named. Iwas chosen to accompany the car that was going to Aristarchus, because,as every one who had viewed the moon from the earth was aware, there wassomething very mysterious about that mountain. I knew that it was acrater nearly thirty miles in diameter and very deep, although its floorwas plainly visible.
What rendered it remarkable was the fact that the floor and the walls ofthe crater, particularly on the inner side, glowed with a marvelousbrightness which rendered them almost blinding when viewed with apowerful telescope.
So bright were they, indeed, that the eye was unable to see many of thedetails which the telescope would have made visible but for the flood oflight which poured from the mountains. Sir William Hershel had been socompletely misled by this appearance that he supposed he was watching alunar volcano in eruption.
It had always been a difficult question what caused the extraordinaryluminosity of Aristarchus. No end of hypothesis had been invented toaccount for it. Now I was to assist in settling these questions forever.
From Cape Heraclides to Aristarchus the distance in air line wassomething over 300 miles. Our course lay across the northeastern part ofthe Sea of Showers, with enormous cliffs, mountain masses and peaksshining on the right, while in the other direction the view was boundedby the distant range of the lunar Appenines, some of whose toweringpeaks, when viewed from our immense elevation, appeared as sharp as theSwiss Matterhorn.
When we had arrived within about a hundred miles of our destination wefound ourselves, floating directly over the so-called HarbingerMountains. The serrated peaks of Aristarchus then appeared ahead of us,fairly blazing in the sunshine.
It seemed as if a gigantic string of diamonds, every one as great as amountain peak, had been cast down upon the barren surface of the moonand left to waste their brilliance upon the desert air of this abandonedworld.
As we rapidly approached the dazzling splendor of the mountain becamealmost unbearable to our eyes, and we were compelled to resort to thedevise, practised by all climbers of lofty mountains, where the glare ofsunlight on snow surfaces is liable to cause temporary blindness, ofprotecting our eyes with neutral-tinted glasses.
Professor Moissan, the great French chemist and maker of artificialdiamonds, fairly danced with delight.
"Voila! Voila! Voila!" was all that he could say.
When we were comparatively near, the mountain no longer seemed to glowwith a uniform radiance, evenly distributed over its entire surface, butnow innumerable points of light, all as bright as so many little suns,blazed away at us. It was evident that we had before us a mountaincomposed of, or at least covered with, crystals.
Without stopping to alight on the outer slopes of the great ring-shapedrange of peaks which composed Aristarchus, we sailed over their rim andlooked down into the interior. Here the splendor of the crystals wasgreater than on the outer slopes, and the broad floor of the crater,thousands of feet beneath us, shone and sparkled with overwhelmingradiance, as if it were an immense bin of diamonds, while a peak in thecenter flamed like a stupendous tiara incrusted with selected gems.
Eager to see what these crystals were, the car was now allowed rapidlyto drop into the interior of the crater. With great caution we broughtit to rest upon the blazing ground, for the sharp edges of the crystalswould certainly have torn the metallic sides of the car if it had comeinto violent contact with them.
Donning our air-tight suits and stepping carefully out upon thiswonderful footing we attempted to detach some of the crystals. Many ofthem were firmly fastened, but a few--some of astonishing size--werereadily loosened.
A moment's inspection showed that we had stumbled upon the mostmarvelous work of the forces of crystalization that human eyes had everrested upon. Some time in the past history of the moon there had been anenormous outflow of molten material from the crater. This had overspreadthe walls and partially filled up the interior, and later its surfacehad flowered into gems, as thick as blossoms in a bed of pansies.
The whole mass flashed prismatic rays of indescribable beauty andintensity. We gazed at first speechless with amazement.
"It cannot be, surely it cannot be," said Professor Moissan at length.
"But it is," said another member of the party.
"Are these diamonds?" asked a third.
"I cannot yet tell," replied the Professor. "They have the brilliancy ofdiamonds, but they may be something else."
"Moon jewels," suggested a third.
"And worth untold millions, whatever they are," remarked another. Thesemagnificent crystals, some of which appeared to be almost flawless,varied in size from the dimensions of a hazelnut to geometrical solidsseveral inches in diameter. We carefully selected as many as it wasconvenient to carry and placed them in the car for future examination.We had solved another long standing lunar problem and had, perhaps,opened up an inexhaustible future mine of wealth which might eventuallygo far toward reimbursing the earth for the damage which it had sufferedfrom the invasion of the Martians.
On returning to Cape Heraclides we found that the other expeditions hadarrived at the rendezvous ahead of us. Their members had wonderfulstories to tell of what they had seen, but nothing caused quite so muchastonishment as that which we had to tell and to show.
The party which had gone to visit Plato and the lunar Alps brought back,however, information which, in a scientific sense, was no lessinteresting than what we had been able to gather.
They had found within this curious ring of Plato, which is a circle ofmountains sixty miles in diameter, enclosing a level plain remarkablysmooth over most of its surface, unmistakable evidences of formerhabitation. A gigantic city had evidently at one time existed near thecenter of this great plain. The outlines of its walls and the foundationmarks of some of its immense buildings were plainly made out, andelaborate plans of this vanished capitol of the moon were prepared byseveral members of the party.
One of them was fortunate enough to discover an even more precious relicof the ancient lunarians. It was a piece of petrified skullbone,representing but a small portion of the head to which it had belonged,but yet sufficient to enable the anthropologists, who immediately fellto examining it, to draw ideal representations of the head as it musthave been in life--the head of a giant of enormous size, which, if ithad possessed a highly organized brain, of proportionate magnitude, musthave given to its possessor intellectual powers immensely greater thanany of the descendants of Adam have ever been endowed with.
Indeed, one of the professors was certain that some little concretionsfound on the interior of the piece of skull were petrified portions ofthe brain matter itself, and he set to work with the microscope toexamine its organic quality.
In the meantime, the repairs to the electrical ships had been completed,and, although these discoveries on the moon had created a most profoundsensation among the members of the expedition, and aroused an almostirresistable desire to continue the explorations thus happily begun, yeteverybody knew that these things were aside from the main purpose inview, and that we should be false to our duty in wasting a moment moreupon the moon than was absolutely necessary to put the ships in propercondition to proceed on their warlike voyage.
Everything being prepared then, we left the moon with great regret, justforty-eight hours after we had landed upon its surface, carrying with usa determination to revisit it and to learn more of its wonderful secretsin case we should survive the dangers which we were now going to face.