"Don't you see the furrows?
They're certainly plain enough.

They are white too from glistening in the sun, but they are quite different from the radiating streaks of _Copernicus_.

Why, their sides are perfectly parallel!" "Where are those furrows ?" asked M'Nicholl, putting his glasses to his eye and adjusting the focus.
"You can see them in all directions," answered Ardan; "but two are particularly visible: one running north from _Archimedes_, the other south towards the _Apennines_." M'Nicholl's face, as he gazed, gradually assumed a grin which soon developed into a snicker, if not a positive laugh, as he observed to Ardan: "Your Selenites must be Brobdignagians, their oxen Leviathans, and their ploughs bigger than Marston's famous cannon, if these are furrows!" "How's that, Barbican ?" asked Ardan doubtfully, but unwilling to submit to M'Nicholl.
"They're not furrows, dear friend," said Barbican, "and can't be, either, simply on account of their immense size.

They are what the German astronomers called _Rillen_; the French, _rainures_, and the English, _grooves_, _canals_, _clefts_, _cracks_, _chasms_, or _fissures_." "You have a good stock of names for them anyhow," observed Ardan, "if that does any good." "The number of names given them," answered Barbican, "shows how little is really known about them.

They have been observed in all the level portion of the Moon's surface.