moon at our pleasure."

"Agreed," I cried, and we were soon on our way.

So far we had been exposed to the sun and were almost scorched by the
intensity of its rays. We had never experienced anything like such heat
and would not have supposed the human body could endure it. But now, soon
after we had started to find the place where the moon would let go of us,
the sun set and, with scarcely a minute's warning, we were plunged into
darkness and cold. The darkness was relieved by the exceedingly brilliant
appearance of the stars, the sky fairly blazing with them, but the cold
was almost unendurable even for the few moments in which we were exposed
to it. We secured our car as speedily as possible, climbed into it, and
got a little warmth from our gas heater.

These extremes of temperature convinced us that no life such as we were
acquainted with could exist a great while on the moon.

We found we could make no progress at all by night. We could only shut
ourselves up and wait for the sun to come. In trying to keep warm we would
work our air-condensers harder than usual, and the water thus produced we
would freeze in little cakes, and have them to help mitigate the burning
heat a short time the next day.

The country through which we were traveling was made up of bold mountain
peaks and deep ravines. There was no sign of vegetation and not even the
soil for it to grow in, but everywhere only hard, metallic rock that
showed unmistakably the action of fire.

And so it was with the greatest difficulty that we made our way earthward,