Consequently, at the moment of an eclipse, the Moon is far beyond the reach of the real shadow, so that she can see not only the border rays of the Sun, but even those proceeding from his very centre." "Oh then," cried Ardan with a loud laugh, "we have an eclipse of the Sun at the moment when the Sun is quite visible! Isn't that very like a bull, Mr.Philosopher Barbican ?" "Yet it is perfectly true notwithstanding," answered Barbican.

"At such a moment the Sun is not eclipsed, because we can see him: and then again he is eclipsed because we see him only by means of a few of his rays, and even these have lost nearly all their brightness in their passage through the terrestrial atmosphere!" "Barbican is right, friend Michael," observed the Captain slowly: "the same phenomenon occurs on earth every morning at sunrise, when refraction shows us '_the Sun new ris'n Looking through the horizontal misty air, Shorn of his beams._'" "He must be right," said Ardan, who, to do him justice, though quick at seeing a reason, was quicker to acknowledge its justice: "yes, he must be right, because I begin to understand at last very clearly what he really meant.

However, we can judge for ourselves when we get there .-- But, apropos of nothing, tell me, Barbican, what do you think of the Moon being an ancient comet, which had come so far within the sphere of the Earth's attraction as to be kept there and turned into a satellite ?" "Well, that _is_ an original idea!" said Barbican with a smile.
"My ideas generally are of that category," observed Ardan with an affectation of dry pomposity.
"Not this time, however, friend Michael," observed M'Nicholl.
"Oh! I'm a plagiarist, am I ?" asked the Frenchman, pretending to be irritated.
"Well, something very like it," observed M'Nicholl quietly.

"Apollonius Rhodius, as I read one evening in the Philadelphia Library, speaks of the Arcadians of Greece having a tradition that their ancestors were so ancient that they inhabited the Earth long before the Moon had ever become our satellite.

They therefore called them [Greek: _Proselenoi_] or _Ante-lunarians_.