It deserves some detail.
Having passed _Lambert_, being just over _Timocharis_, all were
attentively gazing at the magnificent crater of _Archimedes_ with a
diameter of 52 miles across and ramparts more than 5000 feet in height,
when Ardan startled his companions by suddenly exclaiming:
"Hello! Cultivated fields as I am a living man!"
"What do you mean by your cultivated fields?" asked M'Nicholl sourly,
wiping his glasses and shrugging his shoulders.
"Certainly cultivated fields!" replied Ardan. "Don't you see the
furrows? They're certainly plain enough. They are white too from
glistening in the sun, but they are quite different from the radiating
streaks of _Copernicus_. Why, their sides are perfectly parallel!"
"Where are those furrows?" asked M'Nicholl, putting his glasses to his
eye and adjusting the focus.
"You can see them in all directions," answered Ardan; "but two are
particularly visible: one running north from _Archimedes_, the other
south towards the _Apennines_."
M'Nicholl's face, as he gazed, gradually assumed a grin which soon
developed into a snicker, if not a positive laugh, as he observed to
Ardan:
"Your Selenites must be Brobdignagians, their oxen Leviathans, and their
ploughs bigger than Marston's famous cannon, if these are furrows!"
"How's that, Barbican?" asked Ardan doubtfully, but unwilling to submit
to M'Nicholl.
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