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The Moon

The moon is 240,000 miles from the earth, and her diameter is a little over 2000 miles. She appears quite as large as the sun, owing to her proximity, though in reality her size compared with the sun is as a pin's head to a school globe 2 feet in diameter. The moon is entirely unlike earthly landscape. No sea, no rivers, no lakes, streams, brooks, trees, bushes, grass, or flowers; no breeze or wind, no cloud or mist or rain, no sound of bird or insect, of rustling leaves or trickling water. Nothing but burning, steadfast, changeless glare, contrasting with inky shadows, sun and earth and stars in a black heaven above, silent, desolate mountains and plains below. The surface of this desolate and awful place is seamed by strange round pits and craters of every imaginable size-some of them being 56,000 miles across their mouths, and surrounded by circular mountain ranges. These craters are those of dead volcanoes, and are often 11,000 to 12,000 feet deep.