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"Where are we now?" asked Ardan. "Over the northern shores of the Mare Nubium," replied Barbican. "But we are still too far off to see with any certainty what they are like. What is the Mare itself? A sea, according to the early astronomers? a plain of solid sand, according to later authority? or an immense forest, according to De la Rue of London, so far the Moon's most successful photographer?
This distinction, speaking generally, prevails among the Maria, those of larger size, such as the Oceanus Procellarum, the Mare Nubium, and the Mare Foecunditatis, are less definitely enclosed, and, like terrestrial oceans, communicate with one another; while their borders, or, if the term may be allowed, their coast-line, is often comparatively low and ill-defined, exhibiting many inlets and irregularities in outline.
The ring mountain Landsberg, on the equator, and near the center of the visible eastern hemisphere, is worth watching because Elger noticed changes of color in its interior in 1888. Bullialdus, in the midst of the Mare Nubium, is a very conspicuous and beautiful ring mountain about thirty-eight miles in diameter, with walls 8,000 feet high above the interior.
The border of Thebit rises at one place on the N.W. to a height of nearly 10,000 feet above the interior, which includes much detail. The E. wall of Thebit A attains the same height above its floor, which is depressed more than 5000 feet below the Mare. BIRT. This ring-plain, about 12 miles in diameter, is situated on the Mare Nubium, some distance due E. of Thebit.
The floor, however, on the N. stands 2000 feet above the Mare Humorum. On the W. there is a peak towering 4000 feet above the wall, which is here about 5000 feet above the floor, and 8000 feet above the Mare Nubium. A very notable feature in connection with this formation is the little bright plain bounding it on the N.W., and separated from it by merely a narrow strip of wall.
The Carpathians were therefore pretty nearly in the same condition as the crater mountains Ptolemy, Alpetragius and Arzachel would find themselves in, if some terrible cataclysm, by tearing away their eastern ramparts, had turned them into a chain of mountains whose towering cliffs would nod threateningly over the western shores of Mare Nubium.
Schmidt draws a long row of great depressions on the N. side of it. EAST LONGITUDE 20 deg. TO 40 deg. LANDSBERG. A ring-plain, about 28 miles in diameter, situated in Mare Nubium, S.E. of Reinhold, which in many respects it resembles. Its regular massive border is everywhere continuous.
FRA MAURO. A large enclosure of irregular shape, at least 50 miles from side to side, abutting on Parry and Bonpland. In addition to the cleft which crosses it, the floor is traversed by a great number of ridges, and includes at least seven craters. THEBIT. A fine ring-plain, 32 miles in diameter, on the mountainous W. margin of the Mare Nubium, N.E. of Purbach.
In a corresponding part of the southern hemisphere you see Mare Nubium, the Cloudy Sea, in which our poor human reason so often gets befogged. Close to this lies Mare Humorum, the Sea of Humors, where we sail about, the sport of each fitful breeze, "everything by starts and nothing long."
The mountain ring Kepler, which is also the center of a great system of whitish streaks and splashes, is twenty-two miles in diameter, and notably brilliant. Finally, we turn to the southeastern quadrant of the moon, represented in Lunar Chart No. 4. The broad, dark expanse extending from the north is the Mare Nubium on the west and the Oceanus Procellarum on the east.
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