Then had
come some mighty internal discharge, or rather the subsidence to which
_Mare Imbrium_ is due, for it immediately broke off or swallowed up one
half of those mountains, leaving the other half steep as a wall on one
side and sloping gently on the other to the level of the surrounding
plains. The _Carpathians_ were therefore pretty nearly in the same
condition as the crater mountains _Ptolemy_, _Alpetragius_ and
_Arzachel_ would find themselves in, if some terrible cataclysm, by
tearing away their eastern ramparts, had turned them into a chain of
mountains whose towering cliffs would nod threateningly over the western
shores of _Mare Nubium_. The mean height of the _Carpathians_ is about
6,000 feet, the altitude of certain points in the Pyrenees such as the
_Port of Pineda_, or _Roland's Breach_, in the shadow of _Mont Perdu_.
The northern slopes of the _Carpathians_ sink rapidly towards the shores
of the vast _Mare Imbrium_.
Towards two o'clock in the morning, Barbican calculated the Projectile
to be on the 20th northern parallel, and therefore almost immediately
over the little ring mountain called _Pytheas_, about 4600 feet in
height. The distance of the travellers from the Moon at this point
could not be more than about 750 miles, reduced to about 7 by means of
their excellent telescopes.
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