No system of
castrametation ever devised by Polybius or Vauban could bear the
slightest comparison with such vast fortifications, A city built on the
floor of the circular cavity could be no more reached by the outside
Lunarians than if it had been built in the planet Mars.
This idea set Ardan off again. "Yes," said he, "such a city would be at
once completely inaccessible, and still not inconveniently situated in a
plateau full of aspects decidedly picturesque. Even in the depths of
this immense crater, Nature, as you can see, has left no flat and empty
void. You can easily trace its special oreography, its various mountain
systems which turn it into a regular world on a small scale. Notice its
cones, its central hills, its valleys, its substructures already cut and
dry and therefore quietly prepared to receive the masterpieces of
Selenite architecture. Down there to the left is a lovely spot for a
Saint Peter's; to the right, a magnificent site for a Forum; here a
Louvre could be built capable of entrancing Michael Angelo himself;
there a citadel could be raised to which even Gibraltar would be a
molehill! In the middle rises a sharp peak which can hardly be less than
a mile in height--a grand pedestal for the statue of some Selenite
Vincent de Paul or George Washington.
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