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Julius Schmidt pretends that, if the terrestrial oceans were dried up, a Selenite observer could not distinguish on the globe a greater diversity of shades between the oceans and the continental plains than those on the moon present to a terrestrial observer. According to him, the color common to the vast plains known by the name of "seas" is a dark gray mixed with green and brown.
Hence a plate of tourmaline, with its axis parallel to the beam, stops the light, and with the axis perpendicular to the beam transmits the light. A plate of selenite placed between the Nicol and the actinic cloud shows the colours of polarized light; in fact, the cloud itself plays the part of a polarizing Nicol.
They were passing away from the scene of their brief triumph, and I, a lonely and dejected scientist, saw myself doomed to expiate a moment's madness in long years of ineffectual speculation on the probable development of Moral Ideas. My mind reverted to my abandoned arguments, embodied in the article which lay beneath the selenite paperweight in my study in Campden Hill Gardens.
Which I found true by Experience, and I was so far from hankering after Flesh, that even the Thoughts of it were shocking and nauseous to me. We drank the most delicious Wine, which they press'd from the Grape into their Cups, and which was no way intoxicating. After Supper, the Selenite address'd himself to me in Words to this Effect.
"For my part, however," continued Barbican, not heeding these interruptions, "I must confess that, notwithstanding the magnificent splendor of the spectacle when viewed for the first time by the Selenite who inhabits the dark side of the Moon, I should prefer to be a resident on the illuminated side.
Here and there only, a bare spot might be observed a little buttress of white laminated gypsum, mingled with sparkling selenite; while at other places a miniature torrent, leaping over the rocks, and dancing among the dark cedars, presented a very similar appearance. These little torrents, plashing down to the plain, formed numerous crystal rills that traversed the vallon.
"In the Moon, where gravity is six times less than on the Earth, the labor of the Selenites can't be compared with that of men like us." "But suppose a Selenite to be six times smaller than a man like us!" urged M'Nicholl. "And suppose a Selenite never had an existence at all!" interposed Barbican with his usual success in putting an end to the argument. "But never mind the Selenites now.
One day some of these poor creatures, numerous enough in America, went to him and asked to return with him to their native country. Some of them pretended to speak "Selenite," and wished to teach it to Michel Ardan, who willingly lent himself to their innocent mania, and promised to take their messages to their friends in the moon.
The cornelian appeased anger, and the hyacinth provoked sleep, and the amethyst drove away the fumes of wine. The garnet cast out demons, and the hydropicus deprived the moon of her colour. The selenite waxed and waned with the moon, and the meloceus, that discovers thieves, could be affected only by the blood of kids.
Here, as with the ants, this thing has become a normal condition of the race, and the whole of such eplacement as is necessary falls upon this special and by no means numerous class of matrons, the mothers of the moon-world, large and stately beings beautifully fitted to bear the larval Selenite.
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