"I feel my flesh already crawling even in the anticipation!" cried Ardan.
"I shan't regret it much if we never get to the Moon," growled M'Nicholl; "I never hankered after it anyhow!"
By this time the Projectile had reached the fortieth degree of lunar latitude, and could hardly be further than five hundred miles from the surface, a distance reduced to about 5 miles by the travellers' glasses. Away to their left appeared Helicon, a ring mountain about 1600 feet high; and still further to the left the eye could catch a glimpse of the cliffs enclosing a semi-elliptical portion of Mare Imbrium, called the Sinus Iridium, or Bay of the Rainbows.
In order to allow astronomers to make complete observations on the lunar surface, the terrestrial atmosphere should possess a transparency seventy t
