One or two that
were missing had been probably struck and carried off by a fragment of
the exploded bolide.
Of the Earth nothing as yet could be seen. She was only one day Old,
having been New the previous evening, and two days were still to elapse
before her crescent would be sufficiently cleared of the solar rays to
be capable of performing her ordinary duty of serving as a time-piece
for the Selenites. For, as the reflecting reader need hardly be
reminded, since she rotates with perfect regularity on her axis, she can
make such rotations visible to the Selenites by bringing some particular
point on her surface once every twenty-four hours directly over the same
lunar meridian.
Towards the Moon, the view though far less distinct, was still almost as
dazzling as ever. The radiant Queen of Night still glittered in all her
splendor in the midst of the starry host, whose pure white light seemed
to borrow only additional purity and silvery whiteness from the gorgeous
contrast. On her disc, the "seas" were already beginning to assume the
ashy tint so well known to us on Earth, but the rest of her surface
sparkled with all its former radiation, _Tycho_ glowing like a sun in
the midst of the general resplendescence.
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