SOURCE: "A Visit to the Moon" (Pearson's Magazine, January 1900) by George Griffith

DESCRIPTION: "The light was turned full upon the object. If it had been covered with hair it might have passed for some strange type of the ape tribe, but its skin was smooth and of a livid grey. Its lower limbs were evidently more powerful than its upper; its chest was enormously developed, but the stomach was small. The head was big and round and smooth. As they came nearer they saw that in place of finger-nails it had long white feelers which it kept extended and constantly waving about as it groped its way towards the water. As the intense light flashed full on it, it turned its head towards them. It had a nose and a mouth. The nose was long and thick, with huge mobile nostrils, and the mouth formed an angle something like a fish's lips, and of teeth there seemed none. At either side of the upper part of the nose there were two little sunken holes, in which this thing's ancestors of countless thousand years ago had possessed eyes." ("A Visit to the Moon" by George Griffith)

The ruins of the Lunarians' lost civilization.

NOTES: The Lunarians were once a human-like species inhabiting a vast civilization on the Moon, probably before human life appeared on earth. The natural resources of the Moon dwindled, causing cities to move along shrinking oceans and lakes. As the air lessened the Lunarians evolved larger chests to house massive lungs. Ultimately the majority of Lunarians died out, leaving empty cities filled with bones. Some Lunarians retreated to the biggest holes in the Moon's surface where water and air still cling. The degenerate Lunarians became creatures of darkness with small, largely useless eyes, tentacle fingers, hunting for eels in pools and being preyed upon by predators like the octopus-snake. All vestiges of civilization has been lost to these sad, grey creatures.

HISTORY: This tale had an obvious influence on Edgar Rice Burroughs' The Moon Maid (1923). Burroughs uses the same idea of atmosphere existing in depressions on the Moon. Burroughs goes even farther and has the interior of the Moon hollow. The same limited life forms and savagery to survive can be found on Burroughs' Moon.