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ENCKE. A regular ring-plain, 20 miles in diameter, with a comparatively low border, nowhere rising more than 1800 feet above the interior, which is depressed some 1000 feet below the surrounding Oceanus Procellarum. A lofty ridge traverses the floor from S. to N., bifurcating before it reaches the N. wall.
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.
Damoiseau is situated on the W. side of Grimaldi, on the E. coast-line of the Oceanus Procellarum, from which the S.W. border rises at a gentle inclination.
Like Kepler and Aristarchus, who rule over Oceanus Procellarum, Copernicus, when viewed through our telescopes, sometimes glistens so brightly through the ashy light of the Moon that it has been frequently taken for a volcano in full activity.
On the rugged surface, between the ring-plain and the E. edge of the Oceanus Procellarum, lies a very interesting group of crossed clefts, some of which run from N.E. to S.W., and others from N.W. to S.E. Three of the latter proceed from different points in a coarse valley extending from W. to E., and cross the ridges just mentioned.
Towards the north, on the contrary, as far as where the peninsula jutted on Oceanus Procellarum, the plain looked like a sea of lava wildly lashed for a while by a furious hurricane and then, when its waves and breakers and driving ridges were at their wildest, suddenly frozen into solidity.
After Tycho, which is situated in the southern hemisphere, Copernicus forms the most important radiating mountain in the lunar disc. It looms up, single and isolated, like a gigantic light-house, on the peninsula separating Mare Nubium from Oceanus Procellarum on one side and from Mare Imbrium on the other; thus illuminating with its splendid radiation three "Seas" at a time.
WICHMANN. This bright crater, about 5 miles in diameter, stands on a light area in Oceanus Procellarum, N.N.W. of Letronne and nearly due E. of Euclides. Some distance on the N.E. are the relics of what appears once to have been a large enclosure, represented now by a few isolated mountains. HERIGONIUS. A ring-plain, about 7 miles in diameter, in the Mare Procellarum, N.W. of Gassendi.
The great ring north of Flamsteed, 60 miles across, is a notable example; another lies west of it on the north of Wichmann; while a third will be found south- east of Encke; indeed, the Mare Procellarum abounds in objects of this type.
REINER. A regular ring-plain, 21 miles in diameter, in the Mare Procellarum, S.S.E. of Marius, with a very lofty border terraced without and within, and a minute but conspicuous mountain standing at the N. end of a ridge which traverses the uniformly dark floor in a meridional direction.
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