Nevertheless,
the solution still escaped him. He could discover nothing around him but
a dreary waste of immense plains, and towards the north, beneath him,
bare mountains of the aridest character.
Not the slightest vestige of man's work could be detected over the vast
expanse. Not the slightest sign of a ruin spoke of his ever having been
there. Nothing betrayed the slightest trace of the development of animal
life, even in an inferior degree. No movement. Not the least glimpse of
vegetation. Of the three great kingdoms that hold dominion on the
surface of the globe, the mineral, the vegetable and the animal, one
alone was represented on the lunar sphere: the mineral, the whole
mineral, and nothing but the mineral.
"Why!" exclaimed Ardan, with a disconcerted look, after a long and
searching examination, "I can't find anybody. Everything is as
motionless as a street in Pompeii at 4 o'clock in the morning!"
[Illustration: THE SOLUTION STILL ESCAPED HIM.]
"Good comparison, friend Ardan;" observed M'Nicholl. "Lava, slag,
volcanic eminences, vitreous matter glistening like ice, piles of
scoria, pitch black shadows, dazzling streaks, like rivers of light
breaking over jagged rocks--these are now beneath my eye--these alone I
can detect--not a man--not an animal--not a tree.
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