Chapter 11—Fancy and Reality
“Have you ever seen the moon?” asked a professor, ironically, of one of his pupils.
“No, sir!” replied the pupil, still more ironically, “but I must say I have heard it spoken of.”
In one sense, the pupil’s witty answer might be given by a large majority of sublunary beings. How many people have heard speak of the moon who have never seen it—at least through a glass or a telescope! How many have never examined the map of their satellite!
In looking at a selenographic map, one peculiarity strikes us. Contrary to the arrangement followed for that of the Earth and Mars, the continents occupy more particularly the southern hemisphere of the lunar globe. These continents do not show such decided, clear, and regular boundary lines as South America, Africa, and th
