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spheroid; but none of
her secrets could escape the astronomers' eyes, and these clever savants carried their wonderful observations still further.
    Thus they remarked that when the moon was at her full the disc appeared
in certain places striped with white lines, and during her phases
striped with black lines. By prosecuting the study of these with greater
precision they succeeded in making out the exact nature of these lines.
They are long and narrow furrows sunk between parallel ridges, bordering
generally upon the edges of the craters; their length varied from ten to
one hundred miles, and their width was about 1,600 yards. Astronomers
called them furrows, and that was all they could do; they could not
ascertain whether they were the dried-up beds of ancient rivers or not.
The Americans hope, some day or other, to determine this geological
question. They also undertake to reconnoitre the series of parallel
ramparts discovered on the surface of the moon by Gruithuysen, a learned
professor of Munich, who considered them to be a system of elevated
fortifications raised by Selenite engineers. These two still obscure
points, and doubtless many others, can only be definitely settled by
direct communication with the moon.
    As to the intensity of her light there is nothing more to be learnt; it
is 300,000 times weaker than that of the sun, and its heat has no
appreciable action upon thermometers; as to the phenomenon known as the
"ashy light," it is naturally explained by the effect of the sun's rays
transmitted from the earth to the moon, and which seem to complete the
lunar disc when it presents a crescent form during its first and last
phases.
    Such was the state of knowledge acquired respecting the earth's
satellite which the Gun Club undertook to perfect under all its aspects,
cosmographical, geographical, geological, political, and moral.
CHAPTER VI.
WHAT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO IGNORE AND WHAT IS NO LONGER ALLOWED TO BE
BELIEVED IN THE UNITED STATES.
    The immediate effect of Barbicane's proposition was that of bringing out
all astronomical facts relative to the Queen of Night. Everybody began
to study her assiduously. It seemed as if the moon had appeared on the
horizon for the first time, and that no one had ever seen her in the sky
before. She became the fashion; she was the lion of the day, without
appearing less modest on that account, and took her place amongst the
"stars" without being any the prouder. The newspapers revived old
anecdotes in which this "Sun of the wolves" played a part; they recalled
the influence which the ignorance of past ages had ascribed to her; they
sang about her in every tone; a little more and they would have quoted
her witty sayings; the whole of America was filled with selenomania.
    The scientific journals treated the question which touched upon the
enterprise of the Gun Club more specially; they published the letter
from the Observatory of Cambridge, they commented upon it and approved
of it without reserve.
    In short, even the most ignorant Yankee was no longer allowed to be
ignorant of a single fact relative to his satellite, nor, to the oldest
women amongst them, to have any superstitions about her left. Science
flooded them; it penetrated into their eyes and ears; it was impossible
to be an ass—in astronomy.
    Until then many people did not know how the distance between the earth
and the moon had been calculated. This fact was taken advantage of to
explain to them that it was done by measuring the parallax of the moon.
If the word "parallax" seemed new to them, they were told it was the
angle formed by two straight lines drawn from either extremity of the
earth's radius to the moon. If they were in doubt about the perfection
of this method, it was immediately proved to them that not only was the
mean distance 234,347 miles, but that astronomers were right to within
seventy miles.
    To those who were not familiar with the movements of the moon, the
newspapers demonstrated daily that she