Was it by accident or by forethought deep that the two hemispheres of the Moon had been thus so strangely divided, yet, as man to woman, though divided still united, and thus forming even in the cold regions of space a perfect image of our terrestrial existence?
Who can say that our romantic French friend was altogether wrong in thus explaining the astute fancies of the old astronomers?
His companions, however, it need hardly be said, never saw the "seas" in that light.

They looked on them not with sentimental but with geographical eyes.

They studied this new world and tried to get it by heart, working at it like a school boy at his lessons.

They began by measuring its angles and diameters.
To their practical, common sense vision _Mare Nubium_, the Cloudy Sea, was an immense depression of the surface, sprinkled here and there with a few circular mountains.

Covering a great portion of that part of the southern hemisphere which lies east of the centre, it occupied a space of about 270 thousand square miles, its central point lying in 15 deg.