The Argosy, Vol. XXIV, No. 1 — page 110: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

TIO A MONTH IN THE MOON, the Arabs concluded that the prophet had heard them, and had blessed their cause. This assumption on their part was a disappointment to Norbert. It was clear that they had been terrified, yet not sufficiently so to make them give up their enterprise. , Howbeit, when the moon rose on the following day at forty five minutes past six in the evening, occupying twenty one degrees, or nearly a quarter of the half circle of the horizon, the Arabs recommenced their salaams and prayers, but evinced no intention of raising the siege of Tehbali. 3 The moon now filled up, so to say, all one side of the heavens, with the exception of a blue space between her edge and the horizon. She was nearly round, and white as milk, the protuberances on her surface standing out plainly. With the naked eye could be seen chains of mountains, plains dotted over with mountainous peaks and yawning craters, great blue spaces that were either oceans or deserts, coasts bristling with cliffs, frowning rocks, and deep abysses. With the telescope far more was discernible. ‘T‘he least detail of the land- scape appeared as plainly as does the earth when viewed from a balloon. Any doubt that Gertrude may have entertained concerning the correct- ness of the lunar photographs adorning the observatory walls was now eu- tirely dissipated, for in the planet now drawing so near she beheld all the notable features of the lunar map as photographed, standing out clearly and distinctly. The evening was passed in admiration of these marvels, until a little before midnight, the edge of the disk having reached the western horizon, the planet began to slowly disappear, an operation that lasted four hours, and took twenty minutes longer than had been the case when it rose in the morning. They had reached the fifth day of the experiment, and no one had seemed to be disturbed by it. The Arabs had become so accustomed to the phe- nomenon that it was now only by way of a formula that they continued the ceremonies of the first evening, while as to the besieged, they looked out for the moon each evening with the utmost impatience to examine afresh the. marvels displayed through the telescope. But when that evening, at forty four minutes past seven, the planet of the night appeared on the eastern horizon, every one was transfixed with awe at its formidable appearance. It now occupied more than half the circle ; or, to speak more correctly, the diameter now described an are of 92 degrees, fifteen minutes and twenty two seconds. What was still more alarming, only the edge of the disk now was fringed, as it were, with a silvery light, while all the rest appeared an immense -solid dark body, whose convexity was clearly perceptible. For the first time one had the impression of a monstrous globe coming to meet the earth. And yet, as Norbert explained to his friends, they would not have felt this impression if the globe had not still been at a considerable distance, But all the same, they, like the Arabs, suffered an unusual feeling of oppression, so long as the globe hung over them ; and when, at thirty three minutes past four 5 S| (E(0) An) Ehboo CS (E(@) 1 ) | , d j ; . _ '