orbit was, as well as if it were the ring of Saturn.

"But a pea is so small!"

"Yes," said Q., "but we must make a large pea." Then
we fell to work on plans for making the pea very large
and very light. Large,--that it might be seen far away
by storm-tossed navigators: light,--that it might be the
easier blown four thousand and odd miles into the air;
lest it should fall on the heads of the Greenlanders or
the Patagonians; lest they should be injured and the
world lose its new moon. But, of course, all this lath-
and-plaster had to be given up. For the motion through
the air would set fire to this moon just as it does to
other aerolites, and all your lath-and-plaster would
gather into a few white drops, which no Rosse telescope
even could discern. "No," said Q. bravely, "at the least
it must be very substantial. It must stand fire well,
very well. Iron will not answer. It must be brick; we
must have a Brick Moon."

Then we had to calculate its size. You can see, on
the old moon, an edifice two hundred feet long with any
of the fine refractors of our day. But no such
refractors as those can be carried by the poor little
fishermen whom we wanted to befriend, the bones of whose
ships lie white on so many cliffs, their names
unreported at any Lloyd's or by any Ross,

Themselves the owners and their sons the crew.