Читать книгу The Story of the Sun: New York, 1833-1918 онлайн

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The specimen of lunar vegetation, however, which they had already seen, had decided a question of too exciting an interest to induce them to retard its exit. It had demonstrated that the moon has an atmosphere constituted similarly to our own, and capable of sustaining organized and, therefore, most probably, animal life.

“The trees,” says Dr. Grant, “for a period of ten minutes were of one unvaried kind, and unlike any I have seen except the largest class of yews in the English churchyards, which they in some respects resemble. These were followed by a level green plain which, as measured by the painted circle on our canvas of forty-nine feet, must have been more than half a mile in breadth.”

The article had explained that, by means of a great reflector, the lunar views were thrown upon a big canvas screen behind the telescope.

Then appeared as fine a forest of firs, unequivocal firs, as I have ever seen cherished in the bosom of my native mountains. Wearied with the long continuance of these, we greatly reduced the magnifying power of the microscope without eclipsing either of the reflectors, and immediately perceived that we had been insensibly descending, as it were, a mountainous district of highly diversified and romantic character, and that we were on the verge of a lake, or inland sea; but of what relative locality or extent, we were yet too greatly magnified to determine.