\ ENI3IX:. THE MOON AS KNOWN AT THE PRESENT TIME. " Te sacred muses, with whose beauty fir'd, My soul is ravish'd, and my brain inspir'd. Whose priest I am, whose holy fillets wear ; "Would you your poet's first petition hear ; Give me the ways of wandering stars to know: The depths of heav'n above, and earth below. Teach me the various labours of the moon, And whence proceed th' eclipses of the sun. Why flowing tides prevail upon the main. And in what dark recess they shrink again. What shakes the solid earth, what cause delays The summer nights, and shortens winter days." ViRaiL. The picture on the title-page is probably tlie best and minutest view of tbe moon, that lias ever been laid before the public. Most of our readers are aware that the mountains and hollows of the moon have been accu- rately and thoroughly mapped by astronomers, and baptized by appropri- ate names. For the benefit of meritorious students of astronomical geo- graphy, we subjoin the names of all those which have been christened. At the present season it will amply repay the possessor of a small tele- scope to identify the several localities with the aid of the map. In olden time the moon was a goddess. Whatever the ignorant mind of the time was incapable of grasping was supernatural. Thus arose the pale, chaste Deity of the Night, robed in virgin white, roaming dreamily under the partial shade of trees, loving to see her fair image reflected in streams, and shedding a complacent light on tender meet- ings. AVe are not heathens — far from it : but who among us has not 62 APPENDIX. at some time or other paid homage to the Queen of Night*, and thanked her for the gentle light which has shown the way to some fair hand. We say, in blunt scientific terms, that she — or it — is a satellite of the earth, suspended in her — or its — present position by the contrasted at- traction of the sun and the earth. This is the nnromantic version of the naked fact. There was a time when the earth was an uncomfortable semi-incan- descent mass, in the act of cooling ofi" for practical purposes. The at- mosphere was tropical throughout the globe. All things were intensely impregnated — or, as the philosophers say, supersaturated — with carbon. Between the dry land and the waters there was no division. There was no ocean, and consequently no continents. All was hot mud, with here and there a lake or a short river, and here and there a dry, parched, torrid eminence. In those days there were animals and plants, but no human beings. Both animals and plants were like the age in which they flourished — to our notions monstrous. Monsters were the rule, both in the vegetable and the animated world. Creatures were born, and grew to sizes which dwarf the elephant. Plants thrust their heads above the mud, and, in that carboniferous atmosphere, attained heights * "As when the Moon,' refulgent lamp of night! O'er heav'n's clear azure spreads her sacred light, When not a breath disturbs the deep serene, And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene ; Around her throne the vivid planets roll, And stars unnumber'd gild the glowing pole, O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed, And tip with silver ev'ry mountain's head ; Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise, A flood of glory bursts from all the skies." HOMEK. The earth is accompanied by a Moon or satellite, whose distance is 237,000 miles, and diameter 2,160. Her surface is composed of hill and dale, of rocks and moun- tains, nearly two miles high, and of circular cavities, sometimes five miles in depth and forty in diameter. She possesses neither rivers^ nor lakes, nor seas, and we can- not discover with the telescope any traces of living beings, or any monuments of their hands. Viewing the earth as we now do, as the ifiird j^lanet in order from the sun, can we doubt that it is a globe like the rest, poised in ether like them, and, like them, moving round the central luminary ? 1 As when the moon, So. This comparison is Inferior to none in Homer. It is the most beauti- ful night-piece that can be found in poetry. He presents you with a prospect of the heavens, the seas, and the earth ; the stars shine, the air is serene, the world enlighten'd, and the moon mounted in glory. APPENDIX. 63 which Avould have towered above tlie tallest trees of our forests. But in propo^on to the rapidity of their growth was the brevity of their life ; for tb^. o were the days of earttiquakes aiid terrestrial convulsions. Probabl^^^^ day elapsed Avithout some,earth quake or volcanic eruption. Thei^g^'b of day was dull and obscured. Masses of opaque matter f],ii)t,«.-, flnnngh the atmosphere as thickly as dust specks float through a :p,-ht in a darkened room.* The hot air, thick and dull, hung H ijMit^Huist over the face of the earth, which was even then almost without form and void. When the sun went down, dense darkness covered the earth. There was no lesser light to rale the night ; dim twinklings in the far distance, hardly piercing the pall which wrapped our planet, were the only contrasts to the Egyptian blackness of the dark hours. But the internal fires which sprung from the vitals of the earth almost supplied the want of a nocturnal luminary. It is probable that there were but few spots on the globe which were out of view of some flaming- volcano. We count the active volcanoes by integers. When we have enumerated Etna, Vesuvius, Hecla, Jorullo, Colima, and one or two others, we have reached the end of our list. In the days of Homer the volcanoes were counted by scores ; in the carboniferous age they may have, must have, flourished by hundreds and thousands. That vast in- candescent mass, of which the crust only had cooled, kept boiling up every few hours, and furiously pouring out the vials of its wrath upon an earth inhabited by transitory creatures. Go where the traveller may, he will still find traces of this terrible age. That tell-tale rock — " the trap" — is pecuhar to no meridian ; and from the Hudson's Bay territories nearly to Cape Magellan, from Spitzbergen to Borneo, either this, or some mountain range of volcanic origin, here with scoriae disseminated through the more regular formations, there with copper or gold held in a native state in half-decayed quartz, tell a very legible story of the time when all the component parts of the earth were in a fluid state, and were thrown off" by the boihng mass beneath as a kettle throws off" froth and scum. There came a day when the under crust could no -longer bear the weight of the mass which, after being thrown off" daily, returned, by the force of gravitation, to the surface of its parent. A time came when the * For an account of the sing^ular views which the ancients had entertained on this subject, see "The Theology of the Phoenicians," hy Sanchoniaiho, who flourished about the time of the Trojan war. TxColished in a collection o£ Ancient Fragments. New York. 1835. 54 APPENDIX. incandescent and inchoate planet — if so daring a figure may be ventured — felt tlie necessity of unusually strenuous measures. It gathered all its fiery energies, and mustered all its fearful strength. The effect was uni- versal, not local. AVith such bodies distances of 25,000 miles must be trifling, and the earth's meridian — a paltry 8000 miles — not worth men- tioning. One can imagine the purpose and eft"ort being common to the entire molten and raging mass. It came at last. After throes of inconceivable agony, with a roar and a convulsion which must have destroyed every living thing then existent upon the face of the planet, in the midst of general chaos, confusion, and desolation, the earth relieved itself. It tore from its half-cooled sur- face immense masses, and projected them with monstrous force into space; not on one side alone, but on all. Lumps of earth four and five miles in thickness, and thousands of miles long and wide, were in an in- stant forced upwards with such force as to pass beyond the circle of the earth's attraction. These various masses, thus launched into space, soon felt the attraction of each other, and assembled together. They met, and, agreeably to the sublime law of celestial bodies, remained suspended in space at the point where the attraction of the earth meets that of the sun. That other celestial law which forbids the torpidity of any atom of matter compelled the aggregated mass to revolve, and the revolution forced the mass into a spherical shape. Thus the moon came into being. An off'shoot from the earth, it pays homage to its parent by revolving round it, and reflecting back to it a part of the sun's light during the period when that luminary is obscured to us. Had the force with which its substance was expelled from the body of the earth been less, it would have returned to our surface, just as those fragments of matter called aerolites do at regular intervals ; had that force been greater, it would have entered upon the vast area which. is the domain of the sun, and would have been attracted to that great cosmical body, and been fused by its intense heat. It was sent abroad with precisely the force necessary to sustain it in equilibrio between the earth and the sun, and hence it is " the lesser light which rules the night." This is not the only service which it renders us. By its creation it caused great hollows in the surface of the earth. Into these hollows the waters which lay on the face of the deep naturally gathered, and became oceans, lakes, seas, and rivers. The cavities drained the earth of the moisture which had rendered it unfit for the habitation of the higher order of vertebrated creatures. Thus by degrees were formed the great APPENDIX. 55 Atlantic and Pacific, the JSTorthern and the Southern oceans, leaving here and there tracts of cool, dry land for man to inhabit at the word of his Creator. N"or did the office of the moon stop here. While it was up- held in space by the attraction of the earth, it returned the compliment by exercising a reciprocal attraction upon the waters for which it had created beds. With the beautiful regularity which is the characteristic of heavenly bodies, it affected them at uniform intervals, causing the tides to flow and to ebb, and to vibrate between the spring and the neap flow. Lastly, it relieved the earth of a vf^st quantity of superincumbent matter, equal, in fact, to over one-fiftieth of the whole bulk of the planet. One must imagine the earth in the condition of a gentleman who has dined copiously, and whose interior is troubled by an unusual burden ; the convulsion which led to the creation of the moon is similar to the effect of the dose which the gentleman, if he be wise, will instantly take. In departing from us, and setting up for herself, the moon forgot some articles of baggage which were essential to her future comfort and pros- perity. Among these were air and water. How we came by these two useful commodities it were hard to' say. This is made quite certain by the discoveries of astronomers. Rains, dews, oceans, lakes, hail, snow, clouds, are all unknown to the moon. Nothing shields its surface from the burning rays of the sun. Wher- ever the light of that fierce luminary penetrates the moon's surface is incessantly hot. Of volcanic origin, the moon is true to its descent. It is full of volca- noes, most of which, however, perhaps from a conviction of the useless- ness of further action — there being nothing to destroy, and no one even to see their explosions — are now silent and torpid. But they wrought out their destiny so long and so faithfully, that the surface of the moon is frightfully disfigured and uneven. Switzerland is a prairie compared to the smoothest part of the moon's surface. It is nothing but incessant mountain and hollow. Lunar Alps and Rocky Mountains intersect every few miles of the surface. The Himalayas would be unnoticed among the gigantic ranges which ornament the lunar superficies. And the projections, mighty as they are, are but trifling in comparison with the hollows. It would seem as though the moon, with apish weakness, had tried to imitate the earth in throwing off space for rivers and oceans — forgetting that it contained no water to fill the cavities. Astronomers have made the most extraordinary discoveries in reference to these lunar hollows. Some of them appear to be about fifty miles deep, and a hun- 56 APPENDIX. dred miles or so wide, with precipitous sides. Mitcliell has vividly de- scribed these terrible places. Those who have looked over a precipice a few hundred feet in depth may perhaps form some rude idea of what it must be to gaze down into a hole fifty miles deep — so deep that the bot- tom would almost escape the eye, were there an intervening atmosphere —a great, monstrous cave, Avith no vegetation either on the borders or on the top, or on the sides or on the bottom ; no life of any kind, not ev.en the least sound, to break the endless monotony of silence — every- where dull, warm scoriae, lava, and stones of volcanic origin. But even these are the smallest of the lunar cavities. Latterly, acute astronomers, with ■ improved instruments, have gazed into holes in the moon's surface, and estimated them to be no less than two hundred and fifty and three hundred miles deep, with fissures in them through which the sunlight penetrated. Fancy the scene ! Well may it have been termed the abomination of desolation ! Surely this fair earth, with all its gloomy places and all its dreary scenes, contains nothing so overwhelming in its terrible despair as the moon. And who, gazing at its mild white face as it emerges from the cover of a cloud, would deem it so sad and desolate a sphere? There are no " men' in the moon." There cannot be, for they could not exist without air and water. 'Tis a pity, for the sight of this planet of ours, thirteen times the size which the moon appears to us, as fair, and bright, and shining as our nightly luminary, would be a sight worth seeing. Science has made such progress, and common sense has so far kept pace with it, that the old idea that this was the only inhabited sphere in the universe is now completely exploded. There is no reason to believe that our. planet is the only one in our solar system which is devoted to a useful career ; nor is there any ground for imagining that our sun is the only one, of the myriad of suns we see every night, which gives light, and heat, and happiness to human creatures. On the contrary, the supreme wisdom of the Deity affords a fair presumption that this little planet of ours is but as a grain of sand among the worlds which have been created for the glory of God, and that each planet after its kind is fitted for the habitation of creatures whose ofiice and purpose it is to thank and bless Him for their existence. Moons may be an excep- tion for a time. Of all this we know but little, and can only conjecture vaguely. As science advances, we may have telescopic instruments so superior to those now in use that we shall be able to decipher the moon's surface as^ APPENDIX. 57 plainly as a distant sliore on our own planet. But visits tliither must ever remain as impossible as they are at present. The story of Hans Pfall Avill remain a brilliant imagination to the end of time. " In consequence of the moon having no atmosphere, or but a very thin one, all celestial objects must be seen with very great distinctness. The earth, when full, appears to an inhabitant of the moon thirteen times as large as the moon appears to ns ; that is, its diameter is about 3y\ times as large as our apparent lunar diameter. It is always on the same part of the heaven, when seen from the same part of the moon. M. Quetelet, in his Astronomie UUmentaire, Paris, 1826, a very good work, which ought to be translated, has the following remarks on the appearance of the earth at the moon, which we would rather quote than vouch for, though they may possibly be well founded. " Our vast continents, our seas, even our forests are visible to them ; they perceive the enormous piles of ice collected at the poles, and the girdle of vegetation which extends on both sides of the equator ; as well as the clouds which float over our heads, and sometimes hide us from them. The burning of a town or forest could not escape them, and if they had good optical instruments, they could even see the building of a new town, or the sailing of a fleet." The lunar day, as we shall afterwards see, is equivalent to our actual month of 29^ days : though the rotation of the moon on her axis is per- formed in the sidereal month of 27 days 8 hours nearly. Hence the in- habitant of the moon sees the sun for 14f of our days together, which time is followed by a night of the same duration. Of course the ex- istence of any animal like man is impossible there, as well on this ac- count as on that of the want of an atmosphere. The phases which the earth presents to the moon are similar in ap- pearance to those which the moon presents to the earth, but in a dif- ferent order. Thus, when it is new moon at the earth, it is full earth at the moon : and the contrary. "When the moon is in her first quar- ter, the earth is in its third quarter, and so on ; while half-moon at the earth is accompanied by half-earth at the moon. There is no branch of science better fitted to be made the leading- subject of general instruction than that which relates to the planetary and sidereal universe. The truths which it reveals are so startling in their nature, and apparently so far beyond the reach of human intelli- gence, that men of high literary name have confessed their incapacity to understand them, and their inability to believe them. There are few, indeed, we fear, who really believe that they sojourn on a revolving; 68 APPENDIX. globe, and that each day and year of life is measured by its revolutions. There are few who believe that the great luminary of the firmament, whose restless activity they daily witness, is an immovable star, con- trolling, by its solid mass, the primary planets of our system, and form- ing, as it were, the gnomon of the great dial which measures the thread of life and the tenure of empires. Fewer still believe that each of the million of stars — those atoms of light which the telescope can scarcely descry — are the centres of planetary systems that may equal or surpass our own ; and still smaller is the number who believe that the solid pavement of the globe upon which we nightly slumber is an elastic crust, imprisoning fires and forces which have often burst forth in tre- mendous energy, and are, at this very instant, struggling to escape — now finding an outlet in volcanic fires — now heaving and shaking the earth • — now upraising islands and continents, and gathering strength perhaps for, some final outburst which may shatter our earth in pieces, or change its form, or scatter its waters over the land. And yet these are truths than which there is nothing truei', and nothing more worthy of our study. In order to learn, then, what is the constitution, and what has been or may be the probable history of the various worlds in our firmament, we must study the constitution and physical history of our own. The men of limited reason who believed that the earth was created and launched into its ethereal course when man was summoned to its occu- pation, must have either denied altogether the existence of our solar system, or have regarded all its planets as coeval with their own, and as but the ministers to its convenience. Science, however, has now cor- rected this error, and liberated the pious mind from its embarrassments. The Paleontologist — the student of ancient life — has demonstrated, by evidence not to be disputed, that the earth had been inhabited by ani- mals and adorned with plants during immeasurable cycles of time ante- cedent to the creation of man — that when the volcano, the earthquake, and the flood, had destroyed and buried them, nobler forms of life were created to undergo the same fiery ordeal : — and that, by a series of suc- cessive creations and catastrophes, the earth was prepared for the resi- dence of man, and the rich materials in its bosom elaborated for his use, and thrown within his grasp. In the age of our own globe, then, we see the age of its brother planets, and in the antiquity of our own system we see the antiquity of the other systems of the universe. In our catas- ■ trophes, too, we recognise theirs, and in our advancing knowledge and progressive civilization, we witness the development of the u.niversal APPENDIX. 59 mind — the marcli of the immortal spirit to its final destiny of glory or of shame. The following are the names which have been given to the mountains and valleys, or hollows, in the moon, and which are referred to in the accompanying picture [See title page]. MOUNTAINS. 1. The Apennines. 6. The Altai Mountains. 2. The Caucasus. Y. The Cordilleras. 3. The Alps, 8. The Riphaj Mountains. 4. Taurus. 9. The Carpathians. o. risemus. 10. The Hercynian Mountains, HOLLOWS, OR VALLEYS. A. The Crisian Sea. L. The Middle Bay. B. The Sea of Fertility (!!). M. The Sea of Clouds. C. The Sea of Nectar. K The Sea of Mist. D. The Tranquil Sea. 0. TheBay of Epidemics, E. The Serene Sea. P. The Stormy Ocean. . F. The Sea of Dreams. Q. The Showery Sea. G. The Sea of Death, R. The Sea of Rainbows. H. The Dreamy Marsh. S. The Sea of Dews. I. The Cold Sea. T. Humboldt's Sea. K. The Sea of Yapors. As will be seen, astronomers have done what they could to relieve the dreariness of nature by a free indulgence in fanciful names. Dr. Chalmers, speaking of the advantages derived from the discovery of the telescope and microscope, says, " The one led me to see a system in every star. The other leads me to see a world in every atom. The one taught me that this mighty globe, with the whole burden of its people, and of its countries, is but a grain of sand on the high field of immensity. The other teaches me that every grain of sand may harbor within it the tribes and families of a busy population. The one told me of the insignificance of the world I tread upon. The other redeems it from all its insignificance; for it tells rae that in the leaves of every forest, and in the flowers of every garden, and in the waters of every rivulet, there are worlds teeming with life, and numberless as are the glories of the firmament. The one has suggested to rae that beyond 60 APPENDIX. and above all that is visible to man, there may lie fields of creation whicli sweep immeasurably along^ and carry the impress of the Al- mighty's hand to the remotest scenes of the universe. The other sug- gests to me, that within and beneath all that minuteness which the aided eye of man has been able to explore, there may lie a region of invisibles ; and that, could we draw aside the mysterious curtain which shrouds it from our senses, we might there see a theatre of as many wonders as astronomy has unfolded ; a universe within the compass of a point so small, as to elude all the powers of the microscope, but where the wonder-working God finds room for the exercise of all bis attributes, where he can raise another mechanism of worlds,, and fill and animate them all with the evidences of his glory." Opinions of the American Press Respecting the Foregoing Discovery. " Hbrschel's Great Discoveries. — We are too much pleased with the remarks of the sensible, candid, and scientific portions of the public press upon the extracts which we have published relative to these won- ders of the age, to direct our attention very severely to-day to that sceptical class of our cotemporaries to whom none of these attributes can be ascribed. Consummate ignorance is always incredulous to the higher order of scientific discoveries, because it cannot possibly compre- hend them. Its mental thorax is quite capacious enough to swallow any dogmas, however great, that are given upon the authority of names ; but it strains most perilously to receive the great truths of reason and science. We scarcely ever knew a very ignorant person who would be- lieve in the existence of those myriads of invisible beings which inhabit a drop of water, and every grain of dust, until he had actually beheld them through the microscope by which they are developed. Yet these very persons will readily believe in the divinity of Matthias the prophet, and in the most improbable credenda of extravagant systems of faith. The Journal of Commerce, for instance, says it cannot believe in these great discoveries of Dr. Herschel, yet it beheves and defends the innocence of the murderer Avery. These who in a former age imprisoned Galileo for asserting his great discoveries with the telescope, and determined upon sentencing him to be burnt alive, nevertheless believed that Simon Magus actually flew in the air by the aid of the devil, and that w^hen that APPENDIX. 61 aid was withdrawn he fell to the ground and broke his neck. The great mechanical discoverer, Worcester, obtained no credence for his theories in his day, though they are now being continually demonstrated by prac- tical operation. Happily, however, those who impudently and ignorantly deny the great discoveries of Herschel, are chiei3y to be found among those whose faith or whose scepticism, would never be received as a guide for the opinions of other men. From among that portion of the public press whose intelligence and acquirements render them competent judges of the great scientific questions now before the community, 'we extract the following frank declarations of their opinions." — New York Sun, Sep. 1, 1835. " No article, we believe, has appeared for years, that will command so general a perusal and publication. Sir John has added a stock of know- ledge to the present age that will immortalize his name, and place it high on the page of science." — Daily Advertiser. "Discoveries ik the Moon. — We commence to-day the publication of an interesting article which is stated to have been copied from the Edinburgh Journal of Science, and which made its first appearance here in a cotemporary journal of this city. It appears to carry intrinsic evi- dence of being an authentic document." — Mercantile Advertiser. " Stupendous Discovery in Astronomy. — We have read with un- speakable emotions of pleasure and astonishment, an article from the last Edinburgh Scientific Journal, containing an account of the recent discoveries of Sir John Herschel at the Cape of Good Hope." — Albany Daily Advertiser. " It is quite proper that the Sun should be the means of shedding so much light on the Moon. That there should be winged people in the Moon does not strike us as more wonderful than the existence of such a race of beings on earth ; and that there does or did exist such a race rests on the evidence of that most veracious of voyagers and circumstantial of chroniclers, Peter Wilkins, whose celebrated work not only gives an account of the general appearance and habits of a most interesting tribe of flying Indians, but also of all those more delicate and engaging traits which the author was enabled to discover by reason of the conjugal re- lations he entered into with one of the females of the winged tribe." — iV. Y. Evening Post. "We think we can trace in it marks of transatlantic origin." — iV. Y: Commercial Advertiser. "■ The writer (Dr. Andrew Grant) displays the most extensive and ac- curate knowledge of astronomy, and the description of Sir John's 62 APPENDIX. recently improved instrnments, the principle on which the inestimable improvements were fonnded, the account of the wonderful discoveries in the moon, (fee, are all probable and plausible, and have an air of intense verisimilitude." — JV. Y. Times. " Gkeat Astronomical Discoveries ! — By the late arrivals from England there has been received in this country a supplement to the JSdinburffh Journal of Science containing intelligence of the most as- tounding interest from Prof. Herschel's observatory at the Cape of Good Hope The promulgation of these discoveries creates a new era in astronomy and science generally." — New Yorker. " Our enterprising neighbors of the Sun, we are pleased to learn, are likely to enjoy a rich reward from the late lunar discoveries. They deserve all they receive from the public — ' they are worthy.' " — N. Y. Spirit of '16. " After all, however, our doubts and incredulity may be a wrong to the learned astronomer, and the circumstances of this wonderful dis- covery may be correct. Let us do him justice, and allow him to tell his story in his own w^ay." — JV. Y. Sunday News. " The article is said to be an extract from a supplement to the Edin- burgh Journal of Science. It sets forth difficulties encountered by Sir John, on obtaining his glass castings for his great telescope, with mag- nifying powers of 42,000. The account, excepting the magnifying power, has been before published " \i. e., in the Supplement to the Edinburgh Journal of Science. — Ed. Sun\ — U. S. Gazette. " It is not worth while for us to express an opinion as to the truth or falsity of the narrative, as our readers can, after an attentive perusal of the whole story, decide for themselves. Whether true or false, the article is written with consummate ability, and possesses intense inte- rest."— Philadelphia Inquirer. " These are but a handful of the innumerable certificates of credence, and of complimentary testimonials with which the universal press of the country is loading our tables. Indeed, we find veiy few of the public papers express any other opinion. We have named the Journal of Com- merce as an exception, because it not only ignorantly doubted the authen- ticity of the discoveries, but ill-naturedly said that we had fabricated them for the purpose of making a noise and drawing- attention to our paper. " Col. Webb of the Courier and Inquirer has said nothing upon the subject; but he only feels the more, and we are this moment assured that he has made arrangements with the proprietors of the Charleston APPENDIX. 63 steam-packets to take the splendid boat William Gibbons of that line, and charter her for the Cape of Good Hope, -whither he is going with all his family— including Hoskin. " We yesterday extracted from the celebrated Supplement, a mathema- tical problem demonstrating an entirely new, and the only true method of measuring the height of the lunar mountains. We were not then aware of its great importance as a demonstration, also, of the authenti- city of the great discoveries. But several eminent mathematicians have since called and assured us, that it is the greatest mathematical dis- covery of the present age. Now, that problem was either predicated by us, or by some other person, who has thereby made the greatest of all modern discoveries in mathematical astronomy. We did not make it, for we know knothing of mathematics whatever ; therefore, it was made by the only person to whom it can rationally be ascribed, namely, Herschel the astronomer, its only avowed and undeniable author." — Editor of the Sun. THE STORY OF je ViVL A NEWSPAPER IS ,THE MOST NEARLY HUMAN OF ALL INANIMATE THINGS — "THE STORY OF THE SUN" IS A ROMANCE FASCINATING, ILLUMINATING, DELIGHTFUL By Frank M. O'Brien EDITORIAL NOTE — This is the second of a series of articles narrating the history of the New York Sun, and giving a vital, intimate view of New York life during more than eighty eventful years. The first article, printed last month, told of the found- ing of the Sun by Benjamin H. Day in September, 1833, of its rapid rise to success, and of the stirring days when Horace Greeley, William Cullen Bryant, and James Watson Webb were among the active journalists of New York. THE young man whom Day met at the murder trial in White Plains was Richard Adams Locke, a re- porter who v;as destined to kick up more dust than perhaps any other man of his profession. As he comes on the stage, we must let his predecessor, George W. Wisner, pass into the wings. Wisner was a good man, as a reporter, as a writer of editorial articles, and as part owner of the paper. His campaign for Abolition irritated Mr. Day at first, but the young man's motives were so pure and his articles so logical that Day rec- ognized the justice of the cause, even as he realized the foolish methods employed by some of the Abolitionists. Wisner set the face of the Sun against slavery, and Day kept it so, but there were minor mat- ters of policy upon which the partners never agreed, never could agree. When Wisner's health became poor, in the summer of 1835, he expressed a desire to get away from New York. Mr. Day paid him five thousand dollars for his interest in the paper — a large sum in those days, considering the fact that Wisner had won his share with no capital except his pen. Wisner went West and settled at Pontiac, Michigan. There his health improved, his fortune increased, and he was at one time a member of the Michigan Legislature. When Day found that Locke was the best reporter attending the trial of Matthias the Prophet, he hired him to write a series of articles on the religious fakir. These, the first " feature stories " that ever appeared in the Sun, were printed on the front page. A few weeks later, while the Matthias articles were still being sold on the streets in pamphlet form, Locke went to Day and told him that his boss. Colonel Webb of the Courier and Enquirer, had dis- charged him for working for the Stin " on the side." Wisner was about to leave the paper, and Day was glad to hire 100 MUNSEY'S MAGAZINE Locke, for he needed a good editorial writer. Twelve dollars a week was the alluring wage, and Locke accepted it. THE AUTHOR OF THE MOON HOAX Locke was then thirty-five — ten years senior to his employer. Let his contem- porary, Edgar Allan Poe, describe him: He is about five feet seven- inches in height, symmetrically formed; there is an air of dis- tinction about his whole person — the air noble of genius. His face is strongly pitted by the smallpox, and, perhaps from the same cause, there is a marked obliquity in the eyes; a cer- tain calm, clear luminousness, however, about these latter amply compensates for the defect, and the forehead is truly beautiful in its in- tellectuality. I am acquainted with no person possessing so fine a forehead as Mr. Locke. Locke was nine years older than Poe, who at this time had most of his fame ahead of him. Poe was quick to recognize the quality of Locke's writings; in- deed, the poet saw, perhaps more clearly than others of that period, that America was full of good writers — a fact of which the general public was neglectful. This was Poe's tribute to Locke's Hterary gift: His prose style is noticeable for its concision, luminosity, completeness — each quaHty in its proper place. He has that method so generally characteristic of genius proper. Everything he writes is a model in its peculiar way, serving just the purposes intended and nothing to spare. The Sun's new writer was a collateral descendant of John Locke, the English philosopher of the seventeenth century. Born in New York in 1800, he was edu- cated by his mother and by private tutors until he was nineteen, when he went to England and entered Cambridge. While still a student he contributed to the Bee, the Imperial Magazine, and other Eng- lish publications. In his political beliefs he was thoroughly American, and when he left Cambridge he had the hardihood to start the London Republican, the title of which describes its purpose. This was a failure, for London declined to warm to the theories of American democracy, no matter how scholarly their expression. Abandoning the Republican, young Locke devoted himself to literature and science. He ran a periodical called the Cornucopia for about six months, but it was not a financial success, and in 1830 he returned to New York for good and all. Colonel Webb saw his merits, and put him at work on his paper. Locke could write almost anything. In Cambridge and in Fleet Street he had picked up a wonderful store of general information. He could turn out prose or poetry, politics or pathos, anecdotes or astronomy. While he lived in London, Locke was a regular reader of the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, and he brought some copies of it to America. One of these, an issue of 1826, contained an article by Dr. Thomas Dick, of Dundee, a pious man, but inclined to speculate on the possibilities of the universe. In this article Dr. Dick suggested the feasibility of communicating with the moon by means of great stone symbols on the face of the earth. The people of the moon — if there were any — would fathom the dia- grams and reply in a similar way. Dr. Dick explained afterward that he wrote this piece with the idea of satirizing a certain coterie of eccentric German astronomers. Now it happened that Sir John Fred- erick William Herschel, the greatest astronomer of his time, and the son of the celebrated astronomer Sir William Herschel, went to South Africa in Jan- uary, 1834, and estabHshed an obser- vatory at Feldhausen, near Cape Town, with the intention of completing his survey of the sidereal heavens by ex- amining the southern skies as he had swept the northern, thus to make the first telescopic survey of the whole surface of the visible heavens. Locke knew about Sir John and his mission. The Matthias case had blown over, the big fire in Fulton Street was almost forgotten, and things were a bit dull on the island of Manhattan. The newspapers were in a state of armed THE STORY OF THE SUN 101 truce. As Locke and his fellow journalists gathered at the American Hotel bar for their after-dinner brandy, it is probable that there was nothing, not even the great sloth recently arrived at the Ameri- can Museum, to excite a good argument. PREPARING THE WAY FOR THE HOAX Locke needed money, for his salary of twelve dollars a week could ill support the fine gentleman that he was; so he laid a plan before Mr. Day. It was a plot as well as a plan, and the first sly angle of the plot appeared on the second page of the Sun on August 21, 1835: CELESTIAL DISCOVERIES — The Edin- burgh Courant saj'S — "We have just learnt from an eminent publisher in this city that Sir John Herschel, at the Cape of Good Hope, has made some astronomical discoveries of the most wonderful description, by means of an immense telescope of an entirely new principle." Nothing further appeared until Tues- day, August 25, when three columns of the Sun's first page took the newspaper and scientific worlds by the ears. Those were not the days of big type. The Sun's heading read: GREAT ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES. LAXEIiT MADE BT SIR JOHN HERSOHEL, LL.I)., F.R.S., &c. At tbe Cape ot Good Hope. IFrom Supplement to the Edinhurgh Journal of Science.'] It may as well be said here that al- though there had been an Edinburgh Journal of Science, it ceased to exist several years before 1835. The periodical to which Dr. Dick, of Dundee, con- tributed his moon theories was, in a way, the successor to the Journal of Science, but it was called the New Philosophical Journal. The likeness of names was not great, but enough to cause some con- fusion. It is also noteworthy that the sly Locke credited to a supplement, rather than to the Journal of Science itself, the revelations which he that day began to pour before the eyes of Sun readers. Thus he started; In this unusual addition to our Journal we have the happiness of making known to the British public, and thence to the whole civ- ilized world, recent discoveries in astronomy which will build an imperishable monument to the age in which we live, and confer upon the present generation of the human race proud distinction through all future time. It has been poetically said that the stars of heaven are the hereditary regalia of man as the intellectual sovereign of the animal creation. He may now fold the zodiac around him with a loftier con- sciousness of his mental supremacy. After solemnly dwelling on the awe which mortal man must feel upon peering into the secrets of the sky, the article de- clared that Sir John " paused several hours before he commenced his observa- tions, that he might prepare his own mind for discoveries which he knew would fill the minds of myriads of his fellow men with astonishment." It con- tinued: And well might he pause! From the hour the first human pair opened their eyes to the glories of the blue firmament above them, there has been no accession to human knowl- edge at all comparable in sublime interest to that which he has been the honored agent in supplying. Well might he pause! He was about to become the sole depository of won- drous secrets which had been hid from the eyes of all men that had lived since the birth of time. At the end of a half-column of glorifica- tion, the writer got down to brass tacks: To render our enthusiasm intelligible, we will state at once that by means of a telescope, of vast dimensions and an entirely new principle, the younger Herschel, at his observatory in the southern hemisphere, has already made the most extraordinary discoveries in every planet of our solar system; has discovered planets in other solar systems; has obtained a distinct view of objects in the moon, fully equal to that which the unaided eye commands of ter- restrial objects at the distance of one hundred yards; has affirmatively settled the question whether this satellite be inhabited, and by what orders of beings; has firmly established a new theory of cometary phenomena; and has solved or corrected nearly every leading problem of mathematical astronomy. And where was the Journal of Science getting this mine of astronomical revela- 102 MUNSEY'S MAGAZINE tion for its supplement? The mystery is explained at once: We are indebted to the devoted friendship of Dr. Andrew Grant, the pupil of the elder, and for several years past the inseparable coadjutor of the younger Herschel. The amanuensis of the latter at the Cape of Good Hope, and the indefatigable superintendent of his telescope during the whole period of its construction and operations, Dr. Grant has been able to supply us with intelligence equal in general interest at least to that which Dr. Herschel himself has transmitted to the Royal Society. For per- mission to indulge his friendship in com- municating this invaluable information to us, Dr. Grant and ourselves are indebted to the magnanimity of Dr. Herschel, who, far above all mercenary considerations, has thus signally honored and rewarded his fellow laborer in the field of science. Regarding the illustrations which, ac- cording to the implications of the text, accompanied the supplement, the writer was specific. Most of them, he stated, were copies of " drawings taken in the observatory by Herbert Home, Esq., who accompanied the last powerful series of reflectors from London to the Cape. The engraving of the belts of Jupiter is a re- duced copy of an imperial folio drawing by Dr. Herschel himself. The segment of the inner ring of Saturn is from a large drawing by Dr. Grant." SOMETHING NEW IN TELESCOPY A history of Sir William Herschel's work and a description of his telescopes took up a column of the Sun, and on top of this came the details — as the Journal printed them — of Sir John's plans to outdo his father by revolutionary methods and a greater telescope. Sir John, it ap- peared, was in conference with Sir David Brewster : After a few minutes' silent thought, Sir John diffidently inquired whether it would not be possible to effect a transfusion of artificial light through the focal object of vision 1 Sir David, somewhat startled at the originality of the idea, paused a while, and then hesitatingly referred to the refrangibility of rays and the angle of incidence. Sir John, grown more confident, adduced the example of the Newtonian reflector, in which the refrangibility was corrected by the second speculum and the angle of incidence restored by the third. " And," continued he, " why cannot the illu- minated microscope, say the hydro-oxygen, be applied to render distinct and, if necessary, even to magnify, the focal object?" Sir David sprang from his chair in an ecstasy of conviction, and, leaping half-way to the ceiling, exclaimed: "Thou art the man!" Details of the casting of a great lens came next. It was twenty-four feet in diameter, and weighed nearly fifteen thou- sand pounds after it was polished; its esti- mated magnifying-power was forty-two thousand times. As he saw it safely start- ed on its way to Africa, Sir John " ex- pressed confidence in his ultimate ability to study even the entomology of the moon, in case she contained insects upon her surface." Thus ended the first instalment of the story. Where had the Sun got the Journal of Science supplement? An ed- itorial article answered that " it was very politely furnished us by a medical gentle- man immediately from Scotland, in con- sequence of a paragraph which appeared on Friday last from the Edinburgh Com ant." The article added: The portion which we publish to-day is in- troductory to celestial discoveries of higher and more universal interest than any, in any science yet known to the human race. Now indeed it may be said that we live in an age of discovery. It cannot be said that the whole town buzzed with excitement that day. Per- haps this first instalment was a bit over the heads of most readers; it was so technical, so foreign. But in Nassau and Ann Streets, wherever two newspaper- men were gathered together, there was buzzing enough. What was coming next? Why hadn't they thought to subscribe to the Edinburgh Journal of Science, with its wonderful supplement? As Mr, Day and his new writer, Mr. Locke, dropped into Tammany Hall for their afternoon refreshment, doubtless envious eyes were cast upon them. Per- THE STORY OF THE SUN 103 haps they drank to "a medical gentle- man immediately from Scotland." THE SECOND INSTALMENT OF THE HOAX Nearly four columns of the revelations appeared on the following day — August 26, 1835. This time tlie reading public came trooping into camp, for the Sun's re- print of the Journal of Science supplement got beyond the stage of preliminaries and predictions, and began to tell of what was to be seen on the moon. Scientists and newspapermen appreciated the detailed description of the mammoth telescope and the work of placing it, but the public, like a child, wanted the moon — and got it. Let us plunge in at about the point where the public plunged: The specimen of lunar vegetation, however, which they had already seen, had decided a question of too exciting an interest to induce them to retard its exit. It had demonstrated that the moon has an atmosphere constituted similarly to our own, and capable of sustaining organized and, therefore, most probably, animal life. " The trees," says Dr. Grant, " for a period of ten minutes were of one unvaried kind, and unlike any I have seen except the largest class of yews in the English churchyards, which they in some respects resemble. These were followed by a level green plain which, as measured by the painted circle on our canvas of forty-nine feet, must have been more than half a mile in breadth." The article had explained that, by means of a great reflector, the lunar views were thrown upon a big canvas screen behind the telescope. Then appeared as fine a forest of firs, un- equivocal firs, as I have ever seen cherished in the bosom of my native mountains, Wearied with the long continuance of these, we greatly reduced the magnifying power of the microscope without eclipsing either of the reflectors, and immediately perceived that we had been in- sensibly descending, as it were, a mountainous district of highly diversified and romantic char- acter, and that we were on the verge of a lake, or inland sea; but of what relative locality or extent, we were yet too greatly magnified to determine. On Introducing the feeblest achromatic lens we possessed, we found that the water, whose boundary we had just discovered, answered in general outline to the Mare Nvbicum of Riccoli. Fairer shores never angel coasted on a tour of pleasure. A beach of brilliant white sand, girt with wild, castellated rocks, apparently of green marble, varied at chasms, occurring every two or three hundred feet, with grotesque blocks of chalk or gypsum, and feathered and festooned at the summits with the clustering foliage of unknown trees, moved along the bright wall of our apartment until we were speechless with admiration. A column farther on, in a wonderful valley of this wonderful moon, life at last burst upon the seers: In the shade of the woods on the south- eastern side we beheld continuous herds of brown quadrupeds, having all the external char- acteristics of the bison, but more diminutive than any species of the bos genus In our natural history. Its tail was like tlaat of our bos grunniens; but in its semicircular horns, the hump on its shoulders, the depth of its dewlap, and the length of its shaggy hair, it closely re- sembled the species to which I have compared It. It had, however, one widely distinctive fea- ture, which we afterward found common to nearly every lunar quadruped we have dis- covered; namely, a remarkable flesh}' appendage over the eyes, crossing the whole breadth of the forehead and united to the ears. We could most distinctly perceive this hairy veil, which was shaped like the upper front outline of the cap known to the ladles as Mary Queen of Scots cap, lifted and lowered by means of the ears. It immediately occurred to the acute mind of Dr. Herschel that this was a provi- dential contrivance to protect the eyes of the animal from the great extremes of light and darkness to which all the inhabitants of our side of the moon are periodically subjected. The next animal perceived would be classed on earth as a monster. It was of a bluish lead color, about the size of a goat, with a head and beard like him, and a single horn, slightly Inclined forward from the perpendicular. The female was destitute of the horn and beard, but had a much longer tail. It was gregarious, and chiefly abounded on the accllvltous glades of the woods. In elegance of symmetry it rivaled the antelope, and like him it seemed an agile, sprightly creature, running with great speed and springing from the green turf with all the unaccountable antics of the young Iamb or kitten. This beautiful creature afforded us the most exquisite amusement. The mimicry of its move- ments upon our white-painted canvas was as faithful and luminous as that of animals within a few yards of a camera obscura when seen 104 MUNSEY'S MAGAZINE pictured upon its tympan. Frequently, when attempting to -at our fingers upon its beard, it would suddeiily bound away into oblivion, as if conscious of our earthly impertinence; but then others would appear, whom we could not prevent nibbling the herbage, say or do what we would to them. So, at last, the people of earth knew something concrete about the live things of the moon. Goats with beards were there, and every New Yorker knew goats, for they fed upon the rocky hills of Harlem. And the moon had birds, too: On examining the center of this delightful valley we found a large, branching river, abounding with lovely islands and water-birds of numerous kinds. A species of gray pelican ■was the most numerous, but black and white cranes, with unreasonably long legs and bill, were also quite common. We watched their piscivorous experiments a long time in hopes of catching sight of a lunar fish; but, although we were not gratified in this respect, we could easily guess the purpose with which they plunged their long necks so deeply beneath the water. Near the upper extremity of one of these islands we obtained a glimpse of a strange amphibious creature of a spherical form, which rolled with great velocity across the pebbly beach, and was lost sight of in the strong cur- rent which set off from this angle of the island. At this point clouds intervened, and the Herschel party had to call it a day. But it had been a big day, and nobody who read the Sun wondered that the astronomers tossed off " congratulatory bumpers of the best ' East India par- ticular,' and named this place of wonders the Valley of the Unicorn." So ended the Sun story of August 26, but an editorial paragraph assured the patrons of the paper that on the morrow there would be a treat even richer. THE RECEPTION OF THE HOAX What did the other papers say? In the language of a later and less elegant period, they ate it up — some eagerly, some grudgingly, some a bit dubiously, but they ate it, either in crumbs or in hunks. The Daily Advertiser declared: No article has appeared for years that will command so general a perusal and publication. Sir John has added a stock of knowledge to the present age that will immortalize his name and place it high on the page of science. The Mercantile Advertiser, knowing that its lofty readers were unlikely to see the moon revelations in the lowly Sun, hastened to begin reprinting the articles in toto, with the remark that the document appeared to have intrinsic evi- dence of authenticity. The Times, a daily then only a year old, and destined to live only eighteen months more — later, of course, the title was used by a successful daily — said that everything in the Sun story was probable and plausible, and had an " air of intense verisirnilitude." The New York Sunday News advised the incredulous to be patient: Our doubts and incredulity may be a wrong to the learned astronomer, and the circum- stances of this wonderful discovery may be correct. The Courier and Enquirer said nothing at all. Like the Journal of Commerce, it hated the Sun for a lucky upstart. Both of these sixpenny respectables stood silent, with their axes behind their backs. Their own readers, the Livingstons and the Stuyvesants, got not a line about the moon from the blanket sheets, but they sent down into the kitchen and borrowed the Sun from the domestics, on the shallow pretext of wishing to discover whether their employees were reading a moral newspaper — as indeed they were. The Herald, then about four months old, said not a word about the moon story. In fact, that was a period in which it said nothing at all about any subject, for the fire of that summer had unfortu- nately wiped out its plant. On the very days when the 'moon stories appeared, Mr. Bennett stood cracking his knuckles in front of his new establishment, the basement of 202 Broadway, trying to hurry the men who were installing a double-cylinder press. Being a wise per- son, he advertised his progress in the Sun. It may have vexed him to see the circula- THE STORY OF THE SUN 105 tion of tlie Sun — which he had imitated in character and price — bound higher and higher as he stood helpless. A THIRD BUDGET OF LUNAR MARVELS The third instalment of the literary treasure so obligingly imported by the " medical gentleman immediately from Scotland " introduced to Sun readers new and important regions of the moon — the Vagabond Mountains, the Lake of Death, craters of extinct volcanoes twenty-eight hundred feet high, and twelve luxuriant forests divided by open plains " in which waved an ocean of verdure, and which were probably prairies like those of North America." The details were satisfying: Dr. Herschel has classified not less than thirty-eight species of forest trees and nearly twice this number of plants, found in this tract alone, which are widely different to those found in more equatorial latitudes. Of animals he classified nine species of mammalia and five of oviparia. Among the former is a small kind of reindeer, the elk, the moose, the horned bear, and the biped beaver. The last resembles the beaver of the earth in every other respect than its destitution of a tail and its invariable habit of walking upon only two feet. It carries its young in its arms, like a human being, and walks with an easy, gliding motion. Its huts are constructed better and higher than those of many tribes of human savages, and from the appearance of smoke in nearly all of them there is no doubt of its being acquainted with the use of fire. The largest lake described was two hundred and sixty-six miles long and one hundred and ninety-three wide, shaped like the Bay of Bengal, and studded with volcanic islands. One island in a large bay was pinnacled with quartz crystals as brilliant as fire. Near by roamed zebras three feet high. Golden and blue pheasants strutted about. The beach was covered with shell-fish. Dr. Grant did not say whether the fire-making beavers ever held a clambake there. The Sun of Friday, August 28, 1835, was a notable issue. Not yet two years old, Mr. Day's newspaper had the satis- faction of announcing that it had achieved the largest circulation of any daily in the world. It had, it said, 15,440 regular subscribers in New York and 700 in Brooklyn, and it sold 2,000 in the streets and 1,220 out of town — a 'grand total of 19,360 copies, as against the 17,000 circu- lation of the London Times. The double- cylinder Napier press in the building at Nassau and Spruce Streets — the corner where the Tribune is to-day, and to which the Sun had moved on August 3 — had to run ten hours a da}^ to satisfy the public demand. People waited with more or less patience until three o'clock in the afternoon to read about the moon. THE FIRST SIGHT OF THE MAN-BATS That very issue contained the most sensational instalment of all the moon series, for through that mystic chain which included Dr. Grant, the supple- ment of the Edinburgh Journal of Science, the " medical gentleman immediately from Scotland," and the Sun, public curiosity as to the presence of human creatures on the orb of night was satisfied at last. The astronomers were looking upon the cliffs and crags of a new part of the moon: But whilst gazing upon them in a perspective of about half a mile, we were thrilled with astonishment to perceive four successive flocks of large winged creatures, wholly unlike any kind of birds, descend with a slow, even motion from the cliffs on the western side and alight upon the plain. They were first noticed by Dr. Herschel, who exclaimed: " Now, gentlemen, my theories against your proofs, which you have often found a pretty even bet, we have here something worth look- ing at. I was confident that if ever we found beings in human shape it would be in this longitude, and that they would be provided by their Creator with some extraordinary powers of locomotion. First, exchange for my Number D." This lens, being soon introduced, gave us a fine half-mile distance; and we counted three parties of these creatures, of twelve, nine, and fifteen in each, walking erect toward a small wood near the base of the eastern precipices. Certainly they were like human beings, for their wings had now disappeared, and their attitude in walking was both erect and dignified. Having observed them at this distance for some minutes, we introduced lens H.z., which brought them to the apparent proximity of 106 MUNSEY'S MAGAZINE eighty yards — the highest clear magnitude we possessed until the latter end of March, when we effected an improvement in the gas burners. About half of the first party had passed beyond our cailvas; but of all the others we had a perfectly distinct and deliberate view. They averaged four feet in height, were cov- ered, except on the face, with short and glossy copper-colored hair, and had wings composed of a thin membrane, without hair, lying snugly upon their backs, from the top of the shoulders to the calves of the legs. The face, which was of a yellowish flesh- ' color, was a slight improvement upon that of the large orang-utan, being more open and in- telligent in its expression, and having a much greater expanse of forehead. The mouth, how- ever, was very prominent, though somewhat re- lieved by a thick beard upon the lower jaw, and by lips far more human than those of any species of the Simla genus. In general symmetry of body and limbs they were infinitely superior to the orang-utan; so much so that, but for their long wings, Lieu- tenant Drummond said they would look as well on a parade-ground as some of the old cockney militia. The hair on the head was a darker color than that of the body, closely curled, but apparently not woolly, and arranged in two curious semicircles over the temples of the fore- head. Their feet could only be seen as they were alternately lifted in walking; but from what we could see of them in so transient a view, they appeared thin and very protuberant at the heel. Whilst passing across the canvas, and when- ever we afterward saw them, these creatures were evidently engaged in conversation; their gesticulation, more particularly the varied action of the hands and arms, appeared impassioned and emphatic. We hence inferred that they were rational beings, and, although not per- haps of so high an order as others which we discovered the next month on the shores of the Bay of Rainbows, that they were capable of producing works of art and contrivance. The next view we obtained of them was still more favorable. It was on the borders of a little lake, or expanded stream, which we then for the first time perceived running down the valley to the large lake, and having on its eastern margin a small wood. Some of these creatures had crossed this water and were lying like spread eagles on the skirts of the wood. We could then perceive that their wings pos- sessed great expansion, and were similar in structure to those of the bat, being a semi- transparent membrane expanded in curvilineal divisions by means of straight radii, united at the back by the dorsal integuments. But what astonished us very much was the circum- stance of this membrane being continued from the shoulders to the legs, united all the way down, though gradually decreasing in width. The wings seemed completely under the com- mand of volition, for those of the creatures whom we saw bathing in the water spread them instantly to their full width, waved them as ducks do theirs to shake off the water, and then as instantly closed them again in a com- pact form. Our further observation of the habits of these creatures, who were of both sexes, led to results so very remarkable that I prefer they should be first laid before the public in Dr. Herschel's own work, where I have reason to know that they are fully and faithfully stated, however Incredulously thej' may be received. . . ■. The three families then almost simultaneously spread their wings, and were lost in the dark confines of the canvas before we had time to breathe from our paralyzing astonishment. We scientifically denominated them the vespertilio- iiomo, or man-bat; and they are doubtless in- nocent and happy creatures, notwithstanding some of their amusements would but ill com- port with our terrestrial notions of decorum. So ended the account, in Dr. Grant's words, of that fateful day. The editor of the supplement, perhaps a cousin of the '' medical gentleman immediately ar- rived from Scotland," added that although he had of course faithfully obeyed Dr. Grant's injunction to omit " these highly curious passages," he did not " clearly perceive the force of the reasons assigned for it," and he added: From these, however, and other prohibited passages, which will be published by Dr. Her- schel with the certificates of the civil and mil- itary authorities of the colony, and of several Episcopal, Wesleyan, and other ministers who, in the month of March last, were permitted under the stipulation of temporary secrecy to visit the observatory and become eye-witnesses of the wonders which they were requested to attest, we are confident his forthcoming vol- umes will be at once the most sublime in science and the most intense in general interest that ever issued from the press. New York now stopped about all dis- cussion of human slaver}^, the high cost of living — apples cost as much as four cents apiece in Wall Street — and other familiar topics, and devoted its talking hours to the man-bats of the moon. The Sun was stormed by people who wanted back numbers of the stories, and flooded THE STORY OF THE SUN 107 with demands by mail. As the text of the Journal of Science article indicated that the original narrative had been illustrated, there was a cry for pictures. Mr. Day was busy with the paper and its overworked press, but he gave Mr. Locke a free hand, and that scholar took to Norris & Baker, lithographers, in the Union Building, Wall Street, the drawings which had been entrusted to his care by the " medical gentleman immediately from Scotland." Mr. Baker, described by the Sun as quite the most talented htho- graphic artist of the city, worked day and night on his deHghtful task, that the illustrations might be ready when the Sun's press should have turned out, in the hours when it was not printing Suns, a pamphlet containing the astronomical discoveries. " Dr. Herschel's great work," said the Sun, " is preparing for publication at ten guineas sterling, or fifty dollars; and we shall give all the popular substance of it for twelve or thirteen cents." The pamphlets were to be sold two for a quarter; the Hthographs at twenty-five cents for the set. Most newspapers that mentioned the discovery of human creatures on the moon were credulous. The Evening Post, edited by William Cullen Bryant and Fitz - Greene Halleck — "the chanting cherubs of the Post," as Colonel Webb was wont to call them — only skirted the edge of doubt: That there should be winged people in the moon does not strike us as more wonderful than the existence of such a race of beings on earth; and that there does or did exist such a race rests on the evidence of that most vera- cious of voyagers, Peter Wilkins, whose cele- brated work not only gives an account of the general appearance and habits of a most inter- esting tribe of flying Indians, but also of those more delicate and engaging traits which the author was enabled to discover by reason of the conjugal relations he entered into with one of the females of the winged tribe. Peter Wilkins was the hero of Robert Paltock's imaginative book, " The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins, a Cornish Man," published in London in 1750. Paltock's winged people, said Southey, were " the most beautiful crea- tures of imagination that were ever devised." THE WONDROUS TEMPLE OF THE MOON The instalment of the discoveries printed on August 29 revealed to the reader the great Temple of the Moon, built of poHshed sapphire, with a roof of some yellow metal, supported by columns seventy feet high and six feet in diameter: It was open on all sides, and seemed to con- tain neither seats, altars, nor offerings, but it was a light and airy structure, nearly a hun- dred feet high from its white, glistening floor to the glowing roof, and it stood upon a round, green eminence on the eastern side of the valley. We afterward, however, discovered two others which were in every respect facsimiles of this one; but in neither did we perceive any visitants except flocks of wild doves, which alighted on its lustrous pinnacles. Had the devotees of these temples gone the way of all living, or were the latter merely historical monuments? What did the ingenious builders mean by the globe surrounded with flames? Did they, by this, record any past calamity of their world, or predict any future one of ours?, I by no means despair of ulti- mately solving not only these, but a thousand other questions which present themselves re- specting the object in this planet; for not the millionth part of her surface has yet been ex- plored, and we have been more desirous of coflecting the greatest possible number of new facts than of indulging in speculative theories, however seductive to the imagination. The conclusion of this astounding narrative, which totaled eleven thousand words, was printed on August 31. In the valley of the temple a new set of man- bats was found: We had no opportunity of seeing them actually engaged in any work of industry or art; and, so far as we could judge, they spent their happy hours in collecting various fruits in the woods, in eating, flying, bathing, and loitering about upon the summits of precipices. One night, when the astronomers fin- ished work, they neglectfully left the 108 MUNSEY'S MAGAZINE telescope in a perpendicular position. The risen sun burned a hole fifteen feet in circumference through the reflecting chamber, and ruined part of the obser- vatory. When the damage was repaired, the moon was invisible, and so Dr. Herschel turned his attention to Saturn. Much of the discoveries here were tech- nical, as the Sun assured its readers, and the narrative came to an end. An editorial note added: This concludes the supplement with the ex- ception of forty pages of illustrative and mathe- matical notes, which would greatly enhance the size and price of this work without commensur- ably adding to its general interest. In order that our readers may judge for themselves whether we have withheld from them any matter of general comprehension and interest, we insert one of the notes from those pages of the supplement which we thought it useless to reprint; and it may be considered a fair sample of the remainder. For ourselves, we know nothing of mathematics beyond counting dollars and cents, but to geometricians the following new method of measuring the height of the lunar mountains, adopted by Sir John Herschel, may be quite interesting. BAFFLED TRUTH-SEEKERS FROM YALE Perhaps the pretended method of measuring lunar mountains was not in- teresting to laymen, but it may have been the cause of an intellectual tumult at Yale. At all events, a deputation from that college hurried to the steamboat and came to New York to see the wonderful supplement. The collegians saw Mr. Day, and voiced their desire. " Surely," he replied, " you do not doubt that we have the supplement in our possession? I suppose the magazine is somewhere up-stairs, but I consider it almost an insult that you should ask to see it." On their way out the Yale men heard, perhaps from the " devil," that one Locke was interested in the matter of the moon, that he had handled the supplement, and that he was to be seen at the foot of the stairs, smoking his cigar and gazing across City Hall Park. They advanced upon him, and he, less brusk than Mr. Day, told the scientific pilgrims that the sup- plement was in the hands of a printer in William Street — giving the name and address. As the Yale men disappeared in the direction of the printery, Locke started for the same goal, and more rapidly. When the Yalensians arrived, the printer, primed by Locke, told them that the precious pamphlet had just been sent to another shop, where certain proof-reading was to be done. And so they went from post to pillar until the hour came for their return to New Haven. It would not do to linger in New York, for Pro- fessors Denison Olmsted and Elias Loomis were that very day getting their first peep at Halley's comet, about to make the regular appearance with which it favors the earth every seventy-six years. But Yale was not the only part of intellectual New England to be deeply interested in the moon and its bat-men. The Gazette of Hampshire, Massachu- setts, insisted that Edward Everett, who was then running for Governor, had these astronomical discoveries in mind when he declared that " we know not how soon the mind, in its researches into the labyrinth of nature, would grasp some clue which would lead to a new universe and change the aspect of the world." Harriet Martineau, who was touring America at the time, wrote in her " Sketches of Western Travel " that the ladies of Springfield, Massachusetts, sub- scribed to a fund to send missionaries to the benighted luminary. When the Sun articles reached Paris, they were at once translated into illustrated pamphlets, and the caricaturists of the Paris newspapers drew pictures of the man-bats going through the streets singing " Au Clair de la Ltine." London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow made haste to issue editions of the work. Meanwhile, of course, Sir John Her- schel was busy with his telescope at the Cape, all unaware of his expanded fame in the north, Caleb Weeks, of Jamaica, Long Island, the Adam Forepaugh of his THE STORY OF THE SUN 109 day, was setting out for South Africa to get a supply of giraffes for his menagerie, and he had the honor of laying in the great astronomer's hand a clean copy of the pamphlet. To say that Sir John was amazed at the Sun's enterprise would be putting it mildty. When he had read the story through, he went to Caleb Weeks and said that he was overcome; that he never could hope to live up to the fame that had been heaped upon him. HOW THE SECRET LEAKED OUT In New York, meanwhile, Richard Adams Locke had spilled the beans. There was a reporter named Finn, once employed by the Sun, but later a scribe for the Journal of Commerce. He and Locke were friends. One afternoon Gerard Hallock, who was David Hale's partner in the proprietorship of the Journal of Commerce, called Finn to his office and told him to get extra copies of the Sun containing the moon story, as the Journal had decided, in justice to its readers, that it must reprint it. Perhaps at the Sun office, perhaps in the tap-room of the Washington Hotel, Finn met Locke, and they went socially about to public places. Finn told Locke of the work on which he was engaged, and said that, as the moon story was already being put into type at the Journal office, it was likely that it would be printed on the morrow. " Don't print it right away," said Locke. " I wrote it myself." The next day the Journal, instead of being silently grateful for the warning, denounced the alleged discoveries as a hoax. Mr. Bennett, who by this time had the Herald once more in running order, not only cried ''Hoax!" but named Locke as the author. Probably Locke was glad that the suspense was over. He is said to have told a friend that he had not intended the story as a hoax, but as satire. " It is quite evident," he said, as he saw the whole country take the marvelous narrative seriously, " that it is an abortive satire; and I am the best self-hoaxed man in the whole community." But while the Sun's rivals denounced the hoax, the Sun was not quick to admit that it had gulled not only its own readers but almost all the scientific world. Barring the casual conversation between Locke and Finn, there was no evidence plain enough to convince the layman that it was a hoax. The Sun fenced lightly and skilfully with all controverters. On September i6, more than two weeks after the conclusion of the story, it printed a long editorial article on the subject of the authenticity of the discoveries, men- tioning the wide-spread interest that had been displayed in them: Most of those who incredulously regard the whole narrative as a hoax are generously enthu- siastic in panegyrizing not only what they are pleased to denominate its ingenuity and talent, but also its useful effect in diverting the public mind, for a while, from that bitter apple of discord, the abolition of slavery, which still unhappily threatens to turn the milk of human kindness into rancorous gall. That the astro- nomical discoveries have had this effect is obvious from our exchange papers. Who knows, therefore, whether these discoveries in the moon, with the visions of the blissful harmony of her inhabitants which they have revealed, may not have had the effect of reproving the discords of a country which might be happy as a para- dise, which has valleys not less lovely than those of the Ruby Colosseum, of the Unicorn, or of the Triads; and which has not inferior facilities for social intercourse to those possessed by the vespertiliones-homines, or any other homines whatever? Some persons of little faith but great good nature, who consider the " moon story," as it is vulgarly called, an adroit fiction of our own, are quite of the opinion that this was the amiable moral which the writer had in view. Other readers, however, construe the whole as an elaborate satire upon the monstrous fabrica- tions of the political press of the country and the various genera and species of its party editors. In the blue goat with the single horn, mentioned as it is in connexion with the royal arms of England, many persons fancy they perceive the characteristics of a notorious for- eigner who is the supervising editor of one of our largest morning papers. We confess that this idea of intended satire somewhat shook our own faith in the genuine- ness of the extracts from the Edinburgh Journal 110 MUNSEY'S MAGAZINE of Science with which a gentleman connected with our office furnished us as " from a medical gentleman immediately from Scotland." Certain correspondents have been urging us to come out and confess the Vs^hole to be a hoax; but this we can by no means do until we have the testimony of the English or Scotch papers to corroborate such a declaration. In the mean time let every reader of the account examine it and enjoy his own opinion. Many intelligent and scientific persons will believe it true, and will continue to do so to their lives' end; whilst the skepticism of others would not be removed though they were in Dr. Herschel's observatory itself. THE MOON HOAX ON THE STAGE The New York showmen of that day were keen for novelty, and the moon story helped them to it. Mr. Hannington, who ran the diorama in the City Saloon ■ — which was not a barroom, but an amusement house — on Broadway opposite St. Paul's Church, put on " The Lunar Discoveries; a Brilliant Illustration of the Scientific Observation of the Surface of the Moon, to Which Will Be Added the Reported Lunar Observations of Sir John Herschel." Hannington had been show- ing " The Deluge " and " The Burning of Moscow," but the wonders of the moon proved to be far more attractive to his patrons. The Sun approved of this moral spectacle: Hannington forever and still years afterward, say we ! His panorama of the lunar discoveries, in connexion with the beautiful dioramas, are far superior to any other exhibition in this country. Not less popular than Hannington's panorama was an extravaganza put on by Thomas Hamblin at the Bowery Theater, and called " Moonshine, or Lunar Dis- coveries." A Sun man went to review it, and had to stand up; but he was patient enough to stay, and he wrote this about the show: It is quite evident that Hamblin does not believe a word of the whole story, or he would never have taken the liberties with it which he has. The wings of the man-bats and lady- bats, who are of an orange color and look like angels in the jaimdice, are well contrived for effect; and the dialogue is highly witty and pungent. Major Jack Downing's blowing up a whole flock of winged lunarians with a com- bustible bundle of Abolition tracts, after vainly endeavoring to catch a long aim at them with his rifle, is capital; as are also his puns and jokes upon the splendid scenery of the Ruby Colosseum. Take it altogether, it is the most amusing thing that has been on these boards for a long time. Thus the moon eclipsed the regular stars of the New York stage. Even Mrs. Duff, the most pathetic Isabella that ever appeared in " The Fatal Marriage," saw her audiences thin out at the Franklin Theater. Sol Smith's drolleries in " The Lying Valet," at the Park Theater, could not rouse the laughter that the burlesque man-bats caused at the Bowery. POE AND LOCKE — A CURIOUS PARALLEL All this time there was a disappointed man in Baltimore; disappointed because the moon stories had caused him to aban- don one of the most ambitious stories he had attempted. This was Edgar Allan Poe, and the story he dropped was '' Hans Pfaall." In the spring of 1835 the Harpers issued an edition of Sir John Herschel's " Treatise on Astronomy," and Poe, who read it, was deeply interested in the chapter on the possibility of future lunar investigations : The theme excited my fancy, and I longed to give free rein to it in depicting my day- dreams about the scenery of the moon; in short, I longed to write a story embodying these dreams. The obvious difficulty, of course, was that of accounting for the narrator's ac- quaintance with the satellite; and the equally obvious mode of surmounting the difficulty was the supposition of an extraordinary telescope. Poe spoke of this ambition to John Pendleton Kennedy, of Baltimore, already the author of " Swallow Bam," and later to have the honor of writing, as the result of a jest by Thackeray, the fourth chapter of the second volume of "■ The Vir- ginians." Kennedy assured Poe that the mechanics of telescope construction were THE STORY OF THE SUN 111 so fixed that it would be impossible to impart verisimilitude to a tale based on a superefficient telescope. So Poe resorted to other means of bringing the moon close to tlie reader's eye: I fell back upon a style half plausible, half bantering, and resolved to give what interest I could to an actual passage from the earth to the moon, describing the lunar scenery as if surveyed and personally examined by the narrator. Poe wrote the first part of "Hans Pfaall," and published it in the Southern Literary Messenger, of which he was then editor, at Richmond, Virginia. Three weeks afterward the first instalment of Locke's moon story appeared in the Sun. At the moment Poe believed that his idea had been kidnaped : No sooner had I seen the paper than I under- stood the jest, which not for a moment could I doubt had been suggested by my own jeu d'esprit. Some of the New York journals — the Transcript, among others — saw the matter in the same light, and published the moon story side by side with " Hans Pfaall," think- ing that the author of the one had been de- tected in the author of the other. Although the details are, with some excep- tions, very dissimilar, still I maintain that the general features of the two compositions are nearly identical. Both are hoaxes — although one is in a tone of mere banter, the other of down- right earnest; both hoaxes are on one subject, astronomy; both on the same point of that subject, the moon; both professed to have de- rived exclusive information from a foreign country; and both attempt to give plausibly by minuteness of scientific detail. Add to all this, that nothing of a similar nature had ever been attempted before these two hoaxes, the one of which followed immediately upon the heels of the other. Having stated the case, however, in this form, I am bound to do Mr. Locke the justice to say that he denies having seen my article prior to the publication of his own; I am bound to add, also, that I believe him. Nor can any unbiased person who reads, for purpose of comparison, the " Astronomical Discoveries " and " Hans Pfaall " suspect that Locke based his hoax on the story of the Rotterdam debtor who blew his creditors to bits and sailed to the moon in a balloon. Chalk and cheese are much more alike than these two products of genius. Poe may have intended to fall back upon " a style half plausible, half banter- ing," as he described it, but there is not the slightest plausibility about " Hans Pfaall." It is as near to humor as the great, dark mind could get. " Mere banter," as he later described it, is better. The very episode of the dripping pitcher of water, used to wake Hans at an alti- tude where even alcohol would freeze, is enough proof, if proof at all were neces- sary, to strip the tale of its last shred of verisimilitude. No child of twelve would believe in Hans, while Locke's fictitious " Dr. Grant " deceived nine-tenths — the estimate is Poe's — of those who read the narrative of the great doings at the Cape of Good Hope. Locke had spoiled a promising tale for Poe — who tore up the second instalment of " Hans Pfaall " when he " found that he could add very little to the minute and authentic account of Sir John Herschel " — but the poet took pleasure, in later years, in picking the Sun's moon story to bits. " That the public were misled, even for an instant," Poe declared in his critical essay on Locke's writings, "merely proves the gross ignorance which, ten or twelve years ago, was so prevalent on astro- nomical topics." According to Locke's own description of the telescope, said Poe, it could not have brought the moon nearer than five miles; yet Sir John — Locke's Sir John — saw flowers and described the eyes of birds. Locke had an ocean on the moon, although it had been established beyond question that the visible side of the moon is dry. The most ridiculous thing about the moon story, said Poe, was that the narrator described the entire bodies of the man-bats, whereas, if they were seen at all by an observer on the earth, they would manifestly appear as if walking heels up and head down, after the fash- ion of flies on a ceiling. 112 MUNSEY'S MAGAZINE And yet the hoax, Poe admits, " was, upon the whole, the greatest hit in the way of sensation — of merely popular sensation — ever made by any similar fiction either in America or Europe." Whether Locke intended it as satire or not — a debatable point — it was a hoax of the first water. It deceived more per- sons, and for a longer time, than any other fake ever written; and, as the Stm pointed out, it hurt nobody — except, per- haps, the feelings of Dr. Dick, of Dundee — and it took the public mind away from less agreeable matters. Some of the wounded scientists roared, but the public, particularly the New York public, took the exposure of Locke's literary villainy just as Sir John Herschel accepted it — with a grin. EARLIER SUGGESTIONS OF THE STORY As for the inspiration of the moon story, the record is nebulous. If Poe was really grieved at his first thought that Locke had taken from him the main imaginative idea — that the moon was in- habited— then Poe was oversensitive or uninformed, for that idea was at least two centuries old. Francis Godwin, an English bishop and author, who was born in 1562, and who died just two centuries before the Stm was first printed, wrote " The Man in the Moone, or a Discourse of a Voyage Thither by Domingo Gonsales, the Speedy Messenger." This was published in London in 1638, three years after the author's death. In the same year there appeared a book called " The Discovery of a World in the Moone," which contained argu- ments to prove the moon habitable. It was Avritten by John Wilkins — no rela- tive of the fictitious Peter of Paltock's story, but a young English clergyman who later became Bishop of Chester, and who was the first secretary of the Royal Society. Two years later Wilkins added to his " Discovery of a World " a " Dis- course Concernmg the Possibility of a Passage Thither." Cyrano de Bergerac, he of the long nose and the passion for poetry and duel- ing, later to be immortalized by Rostand, read these products of two Englishmen's fancy, and about 1650 he turned out his joyful " Histoire Comique des Etats et Empires de la Lune." But Bergerac had also been influenced by Dante and by Lucian, the latter being the supposed in- spiration of the fanciful narratives of Rabelais and Swift. Perhaps these writers influenced Godwin and Wilkins also; so the trail, zigzagged and ramifying, goes back to the second century. It is hard to indict a man for being inspired, and in the case of the moon story there is no evidence of plagiarism. If " Hans Pfaall " were to be compared with Locke's story for hoaxing qualities, it would only suffer by the comparison. It would appear as the youthful product of a tyro, as against the cunning work of an artist of almost devilish ingenuity. Is there any doubt that the moon hoax was the sole work of Richard Adams Locke? So far as concerns the record of the Sun, the comments of Locke's Ameri- can contemporaries, and the belief of Benjamin H. Day, expressed in 1883 in a talk with Edward P. Mitchell, the answer must be in the negative. Yet it must be set down, as a literary curiosity at least, that it has been believed in France and by at least one English an- tiquary of repute that tlie moon hoax was the work of a Frenchman — Jean Nicolas Nicollet, the astronomer. THE CAREER OF JEAN NICOLLET Nicollet was born at Cluses, in Savoy, in 1786. First a cowherd, he did not learn to read until he was twelve. Once at school his progress was rapid, and at nineteen he became preceptor of mathe- matics at Chambry. He went to Paris, where in 181 7 he was appointed secre- tary-librarian of the Observatory, and he studied astronomy with Laplace, who refers to Nicollet's assistance in his works. In 1823 he was appointed to the govern- ment bureau of longitudes, and at the THE STORY OF THE SUN 113 same time was professor of mathematics in the College of Louis le Grand. He became a master of English, and through this knowledge and his own mathematical genius he was able to as- semble, for the use of the French life- insurance companies, all that was known, and much that he himself discovered, of actuarial methods; this being incorporated in his letter to M. Outrequin on " As- surances Having for Their Basis the Probable Duration of Human Life." He also wrote " Memoirs upon the Measure of an Arc of Parallel Midway Between the Pole and the Equator" (1826), and " Course of Mathematics for the Use of Mariners " (1830). In 1 83 1 Nicollet failed in speculation, losing not only his own fortune but that of others. He came to the United States, arriving early in 1832. It is probable that he was in New York, but there is no evidence as to the length of his stay. It is known, however, that he was impov- erished, and that he was assisted by Bishop Chanche, of Natchez, to go on with his chosen work — an exploration of the Mississippi and its tributaries. He made astronomical and barometrical ob- servations, determined the geographical position and elevation of many important points, and studied Indian lore. The United States government was so well pleased with Nicollet's work that it sent him to the Far West for further in- vestigations, with Lieutenant John C. Fremont as assistant. His " Geology of the Upper Mississippi Region and of the Cretaceous Formation of the Upper Mis- souri " was one of the results of his journeys. After this he tried, through letters, to regain his lost standing in France by seeking election to the Paris Academy of Sciences, but he was black- balled, and, broken-hearted, he died in Washington in September, 1843. The Englishman who believed that Nicollet was the author of the moon hoax was Augustus De Morgan, father of the late William De Morgan, the novelist, and himself a distinguished mathematician and litterateur. He was professor of mathematics at University College, London, at the time when the moon pamphlet first appeared in Eng- land. His " Budget of Paradoxes," an interesting collection of literary curiosi- ties and puzzles, which he had written, but not carefully assembled, was pub- lished in 1872, the year after his death. DE morgan's notes ON NICOLLET Two fragments, printed separately in this volume, refer to the moon hoax. The first is this: " Some Account of the Great Astronomical Dis- coveries Lately Made by Sir John Herschel at the Cape of Good Hope." — Second Edition, London, lamo, 1836. This is a curious hoax, evidently written by a person versed in astronomy and clever at in- troducing probable circumstances and unde- signed coincidences. It first appeared in a newspaper. It makes Sir J. Herschel discover men, animals, et cetera, in the moon, of which much detail is given. There seems to have been a French edition, the original, and Eng- lish editions in America, whence the work came into Britain; but whether the French was published in America or at Paris I do not know. There is no doubt that it was produced in the United States by M. Nicollet, an astron- omer, once of Paris, and a fugitive of some kind. About him I have heard two stories. First, that he fled to America with funds not his own, and that this book was a mere device to raise the wind. Secondly, that he was a protege of Laplace, and of the Polignac party, and also an outspoken man. That after the Revolution he was so obnoxious to the republican party that he judged it prudent to quit France; which he did in debt, leaving money for his creditors, but not enough, with M. Bouvard. In America he connected himself with an as- surance office. The moon story was written, and sent to France, chiefly with the intention of entrapping M. Arago, Nicollet's especial foe, into the belief of it. And those who narrate this version of the story wind up by saying that M. Arago was entrapped, and circulated the wonders through Paris until a letter from Nicollet to M. Bouvard explained the hoax. I have no personal knowledge of either story; but as the poor man had to endure the first, it is but right that the second should be told with it. The second fragment reads as follows: 114 MUNSEY'S MAGAZINE "The Moon Hoax; or, the Discovery That the Moon Has a Vast Population of Human Beings," By Richard Adams Locke. — New York, 1859. This is a reprint of the hoax already men- tioned. I suppose " R. A. Locke " is the name assumed by M. Nicollet. The publisher informs us that when the hoax first appeared day by day in a morning newspaper, the circulation increased fivefold, and the paper obtained a permanent footing. Besides this, an edition of sixty thousand was sold off in less than one month. This discovery was also published under the name of A. R. Grant. Sohnke's " Bibliotheca Mathematica " confounds this Grant with Pro- fessor R. Grant of Glasgow, the author of the " History of Physical Astronomy," who is ac- cordingly made to guarantee the discoveries in the moon. I hope Adams Locke will not merge in J. C. Adams, the codiscoverer of Neptune. Sohnke gives the titles of three French transla- tions of " The Moon Hoax " at Paris, of one at Bordeaux, and of Italian translations at Parma, Palermo, and Milan. A correspondent, who is evidently fully master of details, which he has given at length, informs me that " The Moon Hoax " first ap- peared in the New York Sun, of which R. A. Locke was editor. It so much resembled a story then recently published by Edgar A. Poe, in a Southern paper, " Adventures of Hans Pfaall," that some New York journals published the two side by side. Mr. Locke, when he left the New York Sun, started an- other paper, and discovered the manuscript of Mungo Park; but this did not deceive. The Sun, however, continued its career, and had a great success in an account of a balloon voyage from England to America, in seventy-five hours, by Mr. Monck Mason, Mr. Harrison Ains- worth, and others. I have no doubt that M. Nicollet was the author of " The Moon Hoax," written in a way which marks the practised observatory astronomer beyond all doubt, and by evidence seen in the most minute details. Nicollet had an eye to Europe. I suppose that he took Poe's story and made it a basis for his own. Mr. Locke, it would seem, when he attempted a fabrication for himself, did not succeed. In his remark that " there seems to have been a French edition, the original," Augustus De Morgan was undoubtedly misled, for every authority consultable agrees that the French pamphlets were merely translations of the story originally printed in the Sun; and De Morgan had learned this when he wrote his second note on the subject. The M. Arago whom De Morgan be- lieves Nicollet sought to entrap was Dominique Francois Arago, the cele- brated astronomer. In 1830, as a reward for his many accomplishments, he was made perpetual secretary of the Paris Academy of Sciences, and in the following year — the year of Nicollet's fall from grace — he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies. As to the intimation that Arago was really misled by the moon story, it is unlikely. W. N. Griggs, a con- temporary of Locke, insists in a memoir of that journalist that the narrative was read by Arago to the members of the Academy, and was received with mingled denunciation and laughter. But hoaxing Arago in a matter of astronomy would have been a difficult feat. Surely the dis- crepancies pointed out by Poe would have been noticed immediately. It is, however, easy to understand De Morgan's belief that Nicollet was the author of the moon story. Much of the narrative, particularly parts which have here been omitted, is made up of tech- nicalities which could have come only from the pen of a man versed in the in- tricacies of astronomical science. It seems unlikely that Locke, clever student though he was, could have set down these in- volved demonstrations entirely from his own knowledge of astronomy. They were not put into the story to interest Stm readers, for they are far over the layman's head, but for the purpose of adding verisimilitude to a yarn which, stripped of the technical trimmings, would have been pretty bald. It was plain to De Morgan that Nicollet was one of the few men alive in 1835 who could have woven the scientific fabric in which the hoax was disguised. It was also apparent to him that Nicollet, jealous of the popularity of Arago, might have had a motive for launching a satire, if not a hoax. And then there was Nicollet's presence in America at the time of the moon story's publication, Nicollet's knowl- THE STORY OF THE SUN 115 edge of English, and Nicollet's poverty. The coincidences are interesting, if noth- ing more. FRENCH COMMENTS ON THE MOON HOAX Let us see what the French said about Nicollet and the story that came to the Sun from " a medical gentleman im- mediately from Scotland." In a sketch of Nicollet, printed in the '' Biographic Universelle" (Michaud, Paris, 18S4), the following appears: There has been attributed to him an article which appeared in the daily papers of France, and which, in the form of a letter dated from the United States, spoke of an improvement in the telescope invented by the learned astronomer Herschel, who was then at the Cape of Good Hope. It has been generally and with much probability attributed to Nicollet. With the aid of this admirable improvement Herschel was supposed to have succeeded in discovering on the surface of the moon live beings, buildings of various kinds, and a multi- tude of other interesting things. The descrip- tion of these objects and the ingenious method employed by the English astronomer to attain his purpose was so detailed, and covered with a veneer of science so skilfully applied, that the general public was startled by the announce- ment of the discovery, of which North America hastened to send us the news. It has even been said that several astronomers and physicists of our country were taken in for a moment. That seems hardly probable to us. It was easy to perceive that it was a hoax written by a learned and mischievous person. The '' Nouvelle Biographic Generale " (Paris, 1862), says of Nicollet: He is believed to be the author of the anony- mous pamphlet which appeared in 1836 on the discoveries in the moon made by Herschel at the Cape of Good Hope. Cruel, consistent Locke, never to have written down the details of the conception and birth of the best invention that ever spoofed the world! He leaves history to wonder whether it be possible that, with one word added, the French biographer was right, and that it was " a hoax written by a learned and a mischievous person." Certain it is that Nicollet never wrote all of the moon story; certain, too, that (To be continued in the July Locke wrote much, if not all of it. The calculations of the angles of reflection might have been Nicollet's, but the blue unicorn is the unicorn of Locke. No man can say when the germ of the story first took shape. It might have been designed at any time after Herschel laid the plans for his voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, and that was at least two years before it appeared in the Sun. Was Nicollet in Nev*' York then, and did he and Locke lay their heads together across a table at the American Hotel and plan the great deceit? There was one head full of figures and the stars; another crammed with the imagination that brought forth the iire- making biped beavers and the fascinating, if indecorous, human bats. If thej^ never met, more is the pity. Whether they met, none can say. Go to ask the ghosts of the American Hotel, and you find it gone, and in its place the Woolworth Building, earth's spear leveled at the laughing moon. Whatever happened, tlie credit must rest with Richard Adams Locke. Even if the technical embellishments of the moon story were borrowed, still his was the genius that builded the great temple, made flowers to bloom in the lunar valleys, and grew the filmy wings on the vesper tilio-hom,o. His was the art that caused the bricklayer of Cherry Street to sit late beside his candle, spelling out the rare story with joyous labor. It must have been a reward to Locke, even to the last of his seventy years, to know that he had made people read newspapers who never had read them before; for that is what he really accomplished by this huge, complex lie. — ^' From the epoch of the hoax," wrote Poe, '' the Sun shone with unmitigated splendor. Its success firmly established the ' penny system ' throughout the coun- try, and (through the Sun) consequently we are indebted to the genius of Mr. Locke for one of the most important steps ever yet taken in the pathway of human progress." number of Munsey's Magazinj!) The Regicide BY HAROLD TITUS Author of " The Shadow of the Petticoat," " A Four-Handed Game," etc. FROM his father, the slate-gray color, the spindly, wire-muscled legs, the lineal delicacy, the nose of a grey- hound; from his mother, the complex cross which developed the thin, scraggly feathering along belly and tail, the straight back, the thickened neck, the widened chest, and the collie ears; from old man Waters, an appreciation of his own abilities and shortcomings. " Shag," the man would whine, finger- ing the cool muzzle, " Shag, you never will git to run jacks! Rabbits change direc- tion too fast for your j'ints. You jus' naturally can't make 'em slip quick enough " — with a disparaging shake of his gray head. Then the little green eyes would fire, and Waters would cackle: " But, by holy smoke, you're goin' to make a wolf-dog, a wolf-runnin' fool; git the Big 'Un some day, mebby. You got what none of these others got — you got th' steam; you can run to thunder an' back without showin' it!" Old man Waters lived on a ranch with- in an hour's easy ride of Gray Hair, Okla- homa. His fenced area totaled thirty acres, and the space not devoted to build- ■ ings was entirely in wheat, which returned a meager but sufficient annual revenue and required but little attention. This last was the essential point. Old man Waters was so busy with his dogs that he had no leisure for ranching. He went in for dogs whole-heartedly; Lord bless you, yes! At the ranch he kept from a dozen to eighteen or twenty, and that was merely a starter " Shucks, I can't recoHect," he'd reply to a request for specific information. " Last time I counted, it was somewhere between fifty an' sixty or so." His hounds were scattered widely over the prairie country. When the rabbits became scarce, or he grew tired of one place, he could ride in any direction and pick up a half-dozen greyhounds and a trailer or so that he had left with some distant rancher, run them to his heart's content, and return home — or go on to an-- other dog depository. Every one in the country knew Waters; none was his intimate. He was too much occupied with his dogs to form close hu- man attachments. Frequently some one else rode beside him as he led his pack to the open prairie, where the trail-hounds nosed out the long-eared jacks for their speedier companions to chase; but when Waters was not talking to his dogs he was talking about them, so these contacts with men never ripened into friendships. Occasionally he went quietly through the strips of oak that broke the rolling open, watching for wolves. At those times he strove to avoid company, for coyotes are more cunning than rabbits, and his casual companions could not take the sport with sufficient seriousness. More than ever he was determined to be alone on his wolf-hunting when he came to know the Big 'Un — a great, gaunt beast, heavier by pounds than any prairie-wolf Waters had ever known, less of a skulker, more likely to turn and fight, and faster than his kind. Many times Waters sent the pick of his pack 116 COMPOSITE DRAWING FROM PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE CORONA. Colored from observations made with color chart, August 30, 1905. Of all the secondary planets the earth's satellite is by far the most interesting and importiiiit. The moon completes her circuit around tlie earth in a period whose mean or average lengtli is '27 clays7liours43. 2minutes; but in consequence of her motion in common with the earth around the sun, the mean duration of the lunar month, tliat is, tlie time from new moon to new moon, is 29 days 12 hours 44. 05 minutes, whicli is called the moon's synodical period. If the earth were mo- tionless in space the moon's orbit would be nearly an ellipse, having- the earth in one of ilietocJ; hence her distance from the earth varies during the course of a lunar month. Her mean distance from tlie earth is '238, 850 miles. Her maximum distance, however, may reach 252,830 miles, and the least distance to which she can approach the earth is 221.520 nnles. Jfer dianietei- is 2,162 miles, and if we deduct from her distance from the earth the sum of the two radii of the earth and moon, viz., 3,962 and 1,081 miles respectively, we shall have for the nearest appioiicli ot the sur- faces of the two bodies 216,477 miles. Her orbit is a ver.v intricate one, because the earib in moving aroundthe sun carries the moon along with it; hence the latter is sometimes within and sometimes without the earth's orbit. Itsform is that of a serpentine curve, always concave toward the sun, and inclined to the plane of the earth's orbit at an angle of 5o 9', in consequence of whicli our satel- lite appears sometimes above and sometimes below the plane of the earth's orbit, through which she passes twice in a revolution. These points or positions are called nodes, and no two consecutive nodes occupy positions diametrically opposite on the lunar orbit. The nodes have a retrograde motion, which causes them to make an entire revolution in 18 years, 218 days, 21 hours, 22 minuies and 46 seconds. This motion was well known to the ancients, who called it the fcjaros, and was made use of by them in roughly predicting eclipses. The mooaalways presents the same face to us, as is evident from the permanency of thevarious markings on its surface. This circumstance proves that with respect to the earth she revolvi^s on an axis, and the time of rotation is exactly equal to the time of revolution around the earth, viz., 27.32166 days. The moon's axis is not perpendicular to the plane of her orbit^ but deviates there- from by an angle of about 6o 41'. In consequence of this fact, and of the inclination of the lunar orbittothat of the ecliptic, the poles of the moon lean alternately to and from the earth. When the north pole leans toward the earth we see somewhat more of the region surrounding it, and somewhat less when it leans the contrary way. This displacement is known by the name of libra- tion in latitude. , , . . ,-^-^,^j. The moon*s motion on her axis is uniform, but her angular velocity m her orbit is subject to slightvariations by reason of the form of her orbit; hence it happens that we sometimes see a little more of the eastern or western edge at one time than at another. This phenomenon is known as libration in longitude. , „ x. ..,. ^ The moon's surface contains about 14,685,000 square miles, or nearly four times theareaof TiUrope. Her volume is 1-49 and her mass 1-81 that of the earth, and hence her density is about 3-5 that of the earth, or about 3 2-5 that of water. A t the lunar surface gravity is only 3-'20 ol what it is at the earth, and therefore a body which weighs 20 pounds here would weigh only 3 pounds there. The centre of gravity of the earth and moon, or the point about which they both actually revolve in their course around the sun, lies i«/9 Moines News. | "A book of unusual Interest and value, ari' 1 ought to find a place in every home where thei ' are boys."'— Burlington Hawkeye. "All the papers are written with a view 1 help young men who are just entering life ' choose wisely the line of work that they w pursue. The character of the writers of the^ ! articles makes any comment unnecessary."- ' Baltimore Herald, PUBLISHING COMPANY, Akron, 0.) 156 Fifth Ave., New York City. spite of his legendary personal ugliness — pale, round, ungainly face, sallow complexion, erup- tive skin, huge rubicund nose, pinkish-blue eyes and reddish-yellow hair, he was able to charm ' women by his incisive speech, nicely turned compliments and keen wit. Sainte-Beuve was un ardent admirer of the late Princess Mathilde, hrough whose influence he was made a Senator 3y Napoleon III. He fell desperately in love with the daughter of General Pell^tier, but the young girl could never be reconciled to his mattractive personal appearance. After this le Is stated to have had a desperate flirtation vlth Mme. Ad61e Hugo. He has become the literary curiosity of the day, and books bearing ipon his Inner life are eagerly r^ad. The Liibrarie Chaix has in press "Les Maltres e I'AfTiche," a cleverly illustrated work de- ceptive of the street posters of Jules ChSret, Willette. Stelnlein, L§andre and Crafty. The •ame firm Is about to issue "Les Maitres du ■^ssin," by Roger Marx, inspector general of .arts, a book of especial interest to art w hooks of travel this ^ I SANTA CLAUS M^ILL SOON O PD P/ If you want a handsome presesijl buy a set of \1 CATHEDRALS OF ENGLAND I Edited by. J Canon FarrAr- x vols., octavo, hoftrnj in red silk clfetj (boxed), $5.00. ; The shapely for^' of the voltimes, ii gether with their lit erar jr and art valiJ makes it a. moat dj sirable set for lifer '.-iep . or for preaej/ hrwm^0 neptuneI ^ ,/c// ^l w^ >Ji p ^nieri -1 ] NTENTS OHAPTKB PAGE I. -THE EARTH IN SPACE. Its Motions, etc. ----... . 5 XL— THE CBUST OF THE EARTH. Its Strata, etc. ---_-.. H III.— THE LAND SURFACE OF THE EARTH. Its Continents, etc. - - - - 20 IV— MOUNTAINS, PLATEAUS, AND PLAINS - - - - ■- - - -- 29, v.— ISLANDS. Reefs, Lagoons, etc. - - -- - - - - - - - -36 VI.— MAGNETISM. The Mariner's Compass ; Magnetic Storms, etc. - - - _ 40 VII.— VOLCANOES AND VOLCANIC FORCES. Plienomena of Eruption ; Geysers, etc. 44 VIII.— EARTHQUAKES. Tlieir Causes and Eflfects ---_____ siji IX.— THE WATER OF THE ATMOSPHERE. Its Forms and Uses - - - - 56 ,^ X.— THE WATERS OF THE CONTINENTS. Springs and Lakes - - _ _ 62 XL— RIVERS AND DRAINAGE. What Rivers are and what they do _ _ _ 68 XII.-AVALANCHES, GLACIERS, AND ICEBERGS. Their Formation and Powers. 75 j XIII.— OCEAN. WATERS. Their Extent, Color, Waves, etc. -------8l|l XIV.— TIDES. What Causes them -----_-_____ 86 XV.-OCEAN CURRENTS. Their Formation and Influence - - i _ _ _ 90 I ■ ■ ■ ^' f Xyi.— THE ATMOSPHERE. Its Properties, Winds, Calms, etc. - - - - - 96 il 'VII.— STORMS, CYCLONES, AND TORNADOES. Their Nature and Effects - - ! ' 32lenienti3 of tije .Solar .SaJstcm. Mean Sidereal Dally Revolution- Motion. Days. Distance from the Sun. Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Name OF Planet. 14732.420 5767.6696 3548.192 1886.5182 299.1256 120.4548 42.2308 21.530 87.96925 ■ 224.70080 365.25636 686.97987 4332.6284 10759.2225 30688.5022 60178.3060 0.387099 0.723331 1.000000 1.523688 5.202803 9.538838 19.190978 30.070672 0.466693 0.728260 1.016746 1.665877 5.454395 10.071570 20.094454 30.327506 0.307505 0.718402 0.983254 1.381499 4.951211 9.006100 18.287502 29.813838 35,951,105 67,193,688 92,894,800 141,542,690 483,313,340 886,108,900 1,782,742,060 2,788.764,300 Mercury Venus . . Earth. . . Mars . . . Jupiter. . Saturn. . TJranus . Keptune Eccentricity of Orbit. 0.2056167 0.0068150 0.0167460 0.0933198 0.0483570 0.0558482 0.0470781 0.0085410 Synodlcal Revolution — Days. 115,877 683,920 ■■779,936 ■ 398,866 378,090 369,650 367.482 Inclination of Orbit to Ecliptic. 1 51 1.0 1 18 29.1 2 29 30.6 0 46 21.9 1 46 41.2 Orbital Velocity Miles Per Second. 29.55 22.61 18.38 15.00 Mercury. Venus. . . . Earth. . . . Mars . . . . Jupiter. . . Saturn . . . Uranus. . . Neptune. jn Lnngitudr at the Epoch.** 115 4 3.26 165 4 20.94 99 47 20.22 70 45 5.47 242 24 21.96 53 23 10.90 294 57 2.33 111 24 32.14 Mean Longitudi o£ th« Perihelion.* 76 5 10.9 130 19 58.0 101 25 37.7 334 26 21.8 12 54 18.0 91 19 26.1 169 14 25.8 43 51 38.2 Annual Sidereal Wotioa. + 5.7 + 0.4 + 11.6 + 15.9 + 7.6 + 20.2 + 7.4 —18.9 .n Longitude of the .A.scending Node. 48 52 42,6 99. 33 33.3 112 53 17.7 73 33 2.1 130 48 38.9 10.58 1.94 1.03 0.52 0.041 0.012 0.003 0.001 4.59 1.91 0.97 0.36 0.034 0.010 0.0025 0.001 *Kpoch 1912 January Od Greenwich mean time. Semi-diameter. Volume. Mass. Density. Axial Gravity at Surface. ©=1 Sun At At Mean In AND Unit Least Miles ®= 1 ©=.1 ©-=1 Rotation. PlANETS. Distance. Distance. (Mean). Sun 15 59.6 " 432183.68 1303371.8 329390 0.2527 D. H. M. K. 25 7 48 0 •27.6057 Mercury. . 3.34 6.45 1504.24 0.054955 0.054898 0.99895 24 5 ? .37979 Venus. . . . 8.55 30.90 3850.67 0.921875 0.807328 0.87574 23 21 ? .85236 Earth. . . . 1.000000 1.000000 1.00000 23 56 4.09 1.00000 Mars 5.05 9.64 2274.37 0.189953 0.106478 0 . 56055 24 37 23 .32222 Jupiter. . . 1 37.16 23.12 43758.03 1352.809 314.4985 0.23247 9 55 20 2.57113 Saturn. . . . 1 21.17 9.55 36558.86 788.934 94.0684 0.11923 10 14 24 1.10175 Uranus . . . 33.5 1.84 15096.43 55.550 14.4033 0.25928 Unknown. .98932 Neptune . . 38.7 1.33 17411,34 85.224 16.7199 0.19619 Unknown. .86338 TTHSnaj-YTJ Drawn by Harvey Ellis. Half-toiie plate engraved by C. W. Chadwick THE MAKING OF THE UNIVERSE BY JOHN HENRY FREESE Observer at the Harvard College Observatory i AFTER looking through a telescope of Jr\. high power at such objects in the heavens as nebulae and star-clusters, or per- haps at the "mountains on the moon," vis- itors at the Harvard Observatory always marvel at their delicacy of definition and general magnificence, and often make the inquiry : " Do stars change, and is any order of change discernible?" In the present article I shall consider this question. Under my analysis, the inquiry means, Has the nebular hypothesis been proved or disproved in the fight of facts disclosed by recent astronomical research ? Great think- ers of the past have thought that the sun and its planets, including the earth, existed long ago in a diffused nebulous state, ro- tating on its axis, from which the sun and its planets have evolved by the natural forces of attraction and condensation. At the present time this theory is widely ac- cepted among astronomers. Sir William Herschel, the renowned English astronomer and indefatigable ex- plorer of the stellar realm, extended the aforementioned nebular hypothesis beyond our solar system. His great intellect con- ceived the evolution of the stellar universe in a manner that has received striking con- firmation from recent stellar photographs. Let us consider whether the nebular the- ory applies to all the stars, or, as the visitor puts it, do real changes take place in the stars, and can we discern the order of change ? Do these " unnumbered sparks " grow up from an infancy, live a life, and then undergo extinction and dissolution, only to be recreated by the forces of na- ture ? Changes may be of position, of form, and of composition, though these divisions are closely related. Detecting changes of the position of stars with reference to one another involves an exceedingly nice observation and calcula- tion, but numerous independent researches have confirmed the general principle that the stars in the constellations of Hercules and Lyra are apparently spreading, and those on the opposite side of the celestial sphere are growing nearer together. It was Sir William Herschel who made this great discovery, and he argued from it that our solar system is moving rapidly through space toward Hercules, an analogous ap- parent motion being that of groves of trees, when a person moves from one grove to- ward another, in which case the trees be- hind him seem to be growing nearer toge- ther, and those before him seem separating farther apart. Aside from these general changes, occasioned by the translation of our solar system in space, it is certain that many of the stars are moving irregularly in reference to one another, — some this way, some that, — stars near together tending to move in the same direction. One star, known as No. 1830 Groombridge's Cata- logue, moves ten degrees in five thousand years ; Arcturus moves five degrees in ten thousand years, both being extraordinarily great changes from the astronomical point of view. Professor Arthur Searle of the Harvard Observatory has recently detected a star having a very large proper motion, and such new discoveries are becoming commoner every day. Many stars show a tremendous velocity ^ The illustrations are mainly reproductions from prints made by the writer, being his interpretation of negatives made under the direction of Edward C. Picker- ing, Director of the Harvard College Observatory. FIGURE I. A RICH FIELD OF STARS. FROM A PLATE COVERING ONLY FIVE SQUARE DEGREES, BUT SHOWING OVER 400,000 STARS BY ACTUAL COUNT FIGURE 2. SPECTRUM OF ALPHA PfjOTES in the line of sight, some moving toward, others away from, the earth. Sir WiUiam Huggins discovered the ingenious means of detecting this phenomenon by the spec- troscope. A single point of light passed through a prism gives what is called a spectrum. When spread out by a cylin- drical lens, or by a trail on a photographic plate, this appears as a ribbon of light crossed by certain lines. These lines stand for certain chemical elements — hydrogen, calcium, and so on. Figure 2 shows a spectrum of the star Alpha Bootes, photo- graphed at the Harvard Observatory. The lines crossing the band of hght shift their position as the body moves nearer or farther from the observer, and the amount of change can be measured, and the move- ment in the line of sight can be detected and estimated. Changes in form and composition I shall discuss together, and endeavor to work out a definite cycle of evolution. As a starting-point in this endless chain of stellar evolution, conceive the existence of a vast amount of molecular matter, or perhaps gaseous atoms, much diffused in space, and too remote and infinitesimal to be perceived by any human agencies of discernment. Space is filled with such atoms, and they are continually changing their position with respect to one another. Changes in this mass of " star-dust " are ex- ceedingly slow, for thousands of years are but momentary in the scale of cosmic time. At length, however, mutual gravitation brings the atoms near together, and simul- taneously, uninterruptedly, and with in- creasing activity, mutual pressure and in- crease of temperatu.re bring about chemical union. At length these united molecules, by combining with one another again and again, aggregate into irregular, spiral, and annular clouds of nebulae. It is the steady pull of gravity which overcomes atomic repulsion and compels mutual approach FIGURE 3. THE GREAT NEBULA IN ORION FIGURE 4. THE TRIFID NEBULA THE MAKING OF THE UNIVERSE 303 of the particles. Figure 3 shows one of the earher forms of nebulse. Here I beheve a tremendous colhsion between stars in all probability took place many ages ago. The colHding bodies may have been bright stars, but more hkely were stars cooled and darkened by radiation and contraction. Then atomic concentration began, and has continued until a nebula of enormous extent FIGURE S- THE PLANET SATURN. is established, the more or less homogeneous mass probably rotating around a common center of gravity. Continued condensation and centripetal action cause accelerated motion, while, on account of the centrif- ugal force, division of the nebula may take place, as is shown in Figure 4. Here, in a later stage, the nebula is seen divided into two parts, and the larger component shows unmistakable evidence of an approaching division into three parts. There are vari- ous forms of concentration, just as we ob- serve the same phenomena in sky-clouds and dust-clouds. Such forms depend upon the shape of the nebula, its density, mo- tion, size, etc. The photographs them- selves are self-expHcable, indicating that the form really depends upon the accident of creation, whether by collision of stars or by the attractive accumulation of star- stuff. The whole nebula may revolve, throwing off outer rings, as is shown in Figure 5, which represents the planet Sat- urn, and in Figure 6, which shows the planet Jupiter. These photographs give autobiographical evidence, the latter of the existence of attached rings in ages long gone by, while the rings of Saturn remain clearly intact. The bands upon Jupiter's surface and the rings of Saturn may be FIGURE 6. THE PLANET JUPITER seen clearly with a telescope of low power. Figure 7 shows a more extended state of condensation, and is not easily interpreted. Here groups of stars are shown surrounded by nebulous clouds. Gradually the nebu- lous matter is absorbed, and the perpetual recurrence of curves and hues of equal stars regularly interspersed, having strik- ingly similar configuration and being self- dehneated on the photographic plates just FIGURE 7. NEBULA IN CARINA FIGURt; 8. GREAT KKiiULA IN ANDROMliDA By courtesy of Dr. Isaac Roberts of England connected with nebulous matter, adds proof to this hypothesis. Figme 8 shows the nebula in Andromeda, its spiral formation appearing quite clearlj'-. Here, notwith- standing the imfavorable incHnation of the axis of the spiral, we see a strong central nucleus encompassed by dark bands, show- ing divisions betAveen symmetrical bands or rings of nebulousmatter, the center t)f which must be many times larger than our whole solar system. Figures 9 and 10 show two other examples of spiral nebulae, and these nebulas are profusely distributed through- QUt the heavens, and they almost all show Strong central nuclei, the outer portions being more or less broken up, from which innumerable nebulous wsps extend out- ward—in all making a strong pictorial ar- gument, tending to show that large star- clusters are the result of the convolutions of spiral nebulae. Probably the outside of nebulae breaks up first, and so we find many with uniform stars on the outside, but with centers which cannot be resolved by telescopes of the highest power. Fig- ure 1 1 shows a cluster in process of con- densation, the outside being condensed into the stars, and the nucleus being unre- solvable. Figure 12 .shows a cluster wliich can be resolved almost wholly. In all prob- abihty this was once a spiral nebula, and we see it in a much condensed state, look- ing along the axis of the spiral— looking into the cone, as it were. Figure 1 3 shows THE MAKING OF THE UNIVERSE 205 the group of stars known as the Pleiades, it being a condensation almost consum- mated, a faint nebula only remaining around the newly formed stars. Thus we have viewed the transformation of nebulae into stars. To complete the cycle of evolution by understanding the change from stars into nebulae is most per- plexing. But the spectroscope comes to omr aid. With the spectroscope we can FIGURE 9. GREAT SPIRAL NEBULA IN HYDRA quite certainly determine star-temperatures, which gives us an indication of the star's age. This is done by an analysis of the star's spectrum, a star-spectrum being shown in Figure 2. Sirius and other bluish- white stars give spectra crossed by heavy hydrogen lines, indicating a high tempera- ture of the dense primordial matter and its envelopment in hydrogen gas of high tem- perature. This stage I conceive as an early one in stellar life. As condensation and radiation progress, the gaseous star grows brighter, as may happen to a star as explained by Lane's law. In Capella and other stars having spectra resembling our sun, the carbon and metallic lines are conspicuous and numerous, indicating a much more condensed state than Sirius, and recording the extensive dissipation of energy in the form of light and heat. These stars may be called middle-aged. In Aldebaran and other of the lighter-red FIGURE 10, GREAT SPIRAL NEBULA IN CANES MAJORES stars, the spectra are crossed by faint me- tallic lines and dark bands, faint toward the red end of the spectrum. In other deep dark-red stars the metaUic lines are faint, and the dark bands are faint toward the violet end of the spectrum, these two latter stages, in my opinion, being the last stage toward total extinction of Hght. Stars, after gradually absorbing all sur- rounding nebulous particles, at the end of the transition from a gaseous state sink in temperature. Like om- sun, they gradually cool off, and sometime become dark and dead. This, to my mind, is also proved by the fact that so many stars are apparently cooling off, varying extensively in the amount of hght-emission, which irregularity has not as yet been adequately explained. At present there are a great many long- period variable stars, many of which I have observed myself. These stars are period- ically compared with the stars near them of apparently constant magnitude, the comparison stars being of graded degrees FIGURE II. CLUSTER IN HERCULES 206 THE CENTURY MAGAZINE served of all " new stars," and is an instance where, in all probability, either a small body or small nebula collided with a similar body or a tremendous internal explosion took place. It blazed out in February, 1901, at a place where no star had previously been observed, and has ever since been subsiding. Besides this one, astronomical history has recorded at least fifteen similar instances. But you ask, " Why do not bright stars collide, since they are so thick ? " To this I say that, from the astronomical point of view, stars are not thick, but are separated by vast distances in space, and, further. FIGURE 12. CLUSTER IN CENTAURUS of brightness and perhaps being lettered from A to K, A being the brightest, and K several magnitudes fainter. At maximum brightness, a star may be as bright as A or B, and at minimum as faint as K, an un- questioned change of several magnitudes in brightness. I believe thatin time to come, perhaps not for many centuries, the com^se of variation of all stars, apart from the cycles of variation now so easily fixed, will be found rising or falling, and unquestion- ably determined to be at some stage in cosmic life or in the cycle of evolution as revealed by the spectroscope. Extensive variation, I believe, is a symptom of ex- treme decadence, dark-redness being a pre- lude to extinction. Becoming dark and of smaller and smaller mass aif ects velocity and increases perturba- tions of motion, and they become at length more and more irregular. Then it must fol- low that colhsions and grazings of stars occur. Fig- ure 14 shows the recent " new star in Perseus " as photo- graphed at the Yerkes Observa- tory. It is the most perfectly ob- FIGURE 14. THE "NEW STAR IN PERSEUS" By courtesy of Mr. G. W. Ritchey, the Yerkes Observatory FIGURE 13. THE PLEIADES that our universe has existed for such an in- finitely long time — for milhons and millions of ages— that it has reached a high degree of stability, and, by the theory of chances, such collisions are extremely unhkely, though they must occasionally occur. This primary diffusion of molecules is not only brought about by colhsions of stars themselves, but by the coUision and disintegration of comets and me- teors, and by vol- canic action and star-explosions and the incessant chem- ical action going on in space. Extraordinary as it may seem, two hundred tons of meteors fall upon the earth daily, working tremen- dous geological and chemical ef- fect in a long period. VOL. LX. — 19. GREAT NEBULA IN ANDEOMEDA. Photographed with the two-foot reflecting Telescope of the Yerices Observatory ( Ritchey ) . Fig. 9. The Solar Corona. Photographed by Yerkes Observatory Eclipse Expedition, May 28, 1900 (Barnard and Ritchey), preaommates in a very striking manner over the other elements. The spectral lines of snch elements as iron, magnesium, sodium and cal- FiG. 8. ClIABACTERISTIC SPECTRA OF (a) WHITE, (6) YELLOW, AND (c) RED STARS (HUGGINS). cium, rise into prominence as the hydrogen lines fade. Meanwhile the light of the star undergoes a change of color, completely losing its 1)luish cast and assuming a distinctly yellow hue. There can be little if any doubt that our own sun once passed through the successive stages which are represented by the spectra shown in Fig. 8. The time which has elapsed since it acquired its present size and density as the result of the condensation of the great nebula in which the earth and the other planets also had their origin, covers many millions of years. It is fortu- nate for the study of stellar evolution that the stages through which the sun once passed are all exemplified in existing stars, which for unknown Of all the secondary planets the earth's satellite is by far the most? Interesting and important. The moon completes her circuit around the earth in a period whose mean or average length is 27 days 7 hours 43. 2 minutes; but inconsequence of her motion in common witli the earth around the sun, the mean duration of the lunar month, that is, the time from new moon to new moon, is 29 days 12 liours 44.05 minutes, which is called the moon's syiiodical period. If the earth were mo- tionless in space the moon's orbit would be nearlj^ an ellipse, having the eartli in one of the foci ; hence her distance from the earth varies during the course oE a lunar month. Ilor moan distance from the earth is 238,850 miles. Her maximum distance, however, may reacli 252.830 miles, and the least distance to which she can approach the earth is 221.520 miles. Her diameter is 2,162 miles, and if we deduct from lier distance froai the earth the sum of the two radii of the earth and moon, viz. , 3,962 and 1,081 miles, respectively, we shall have for the nearest approach of the sur- facesof tlie two bodies 216,477 miles. Herorbit is a very intricate one, because the earth in moving around the sun carries the moon along with it; hence the latter is sometimes within and sometimes without the eartli's orbit. Its form is that of a serpentine curve, always cmicave toward the sun, and inclined to the plane of the earth's orbit at an angle of 5° 9', in consequence of which our satel- lite appears sometunes above and sometimes below the plane of the eartli's orbit, tlirough which she passes twice in a revolution. These points or positions are called nodes, and no two consecutive nodes occupy positions diametrically opposite on the lunar orbit. U'he nodes have a retrograde motion, which causes them to make an entire revolution in 18 years, 218 days, 21 hours, 22 minutes and 46 seconds. This motion was well known to the ancients, who called it the Saros, and was made use of by them in roughly predicting eclipses. The moon always presents the same face to us, as is evident from the permanency of thevarions markings on its surface. "This circumstance proves that with respect to the earth slie revolvfs on an axis, and the time of rotation is exactly equal to the time of revolution around tlie earth, viz., 27.32166 days. The moon's axis is not perpendicular to the plane of her orbit, but deviates theie- from by an angle of ahout60 41'. In consequence of this fact, and of the inclmation of the lunar orbitto that ot the ecliptic, the poles of tlie moon lean alternately to and from the earth. When the north pole leans toward the earth we see somewhat more of the region surrounding it, and somewhat less when it leans the contrary way. This displacement is known by the name of libra- tion in latitude. . . ,, The moon's motion on her axis is uniform, but her angular velocity m her orbit is subject to slightvariations by reason of the form of her orbit: hence it liappeus that we sometimes see a little more of the eastern or western edge at one time than at another. This phenomenon is known as libration in longitude. The moon's surface contains about 14,685,000 square miles, or nearly four times the area of Kurope Her volume i3 1-49 and her mass 1-81 that of the earth, and hence her density is about 3-5thatof theearth, oraboutS 2-5 that of water. At the lunar surface gravity is only 3-20 of what it is at the earth, and therefore a body which weighs 20 pounds here would weigh only 3 pounds there. The centre of gravity of the earth and moon, or the point about which they botli actually revol\-e in their course around thesun, lies iv itli in the earth; it is 1,063 miles below the surface. The attractive force of the moon acting on the water of our oceans is mainly instrumental in raising them into protuberances or tides in such amanner as to give the total mass a spheroidal figure whose principal a.x:is would continually coincide with the line joining the centres of the earth and moon, but in consequence of the resistance which this movement of the water encounters from con- tinents and islands, as well as from the liquid molecules themselves, the tidal wave can never arrive at any place until about onehour after the moon has crossed the meridian of the place. The moon has no atmosphere and no water. The suddenness with which stars are occulted by the moon is regarded as a conclusive proof that a lunar atmosphere does not exist, and the spectro- scope furnishes negative evidence of the same character. In remote ages the lunar surface was the theatre of violent volcanic action, being elevated into cones and ridges exceeding 20, 000 feet high, and at other places rent into furrows or depressions of corresponding depth. The lunar volcanoes are now extinct. A profound silence reigns over the desolate and rugged surface. It is a dead world, utterly unfit to support animal or vegetable life. THE KARTH'S ATMOSPHERE. The earth's sensible atmosphere is generallv supposed to extend some forty miles in height, prob- ably further, but becoming at only a few miles from ihe surlace of too great a tenuity to support life. The condition and motiois of this aerial ocean play a most important part in the determination of climate, modif.ving, by absorbing, the otherwise intense heat of the sun, and, when laden wilh clouds, hindering the earth from radiating its acquired heat into space. — If- /titoA'er m)2 mooWn titjases, 1913, rH Phase. Boston. New York. Washington. Charleston. Chicago. a 03 1-3 New Moon. First Quarter. Full Moon. Last Quarter. 15 29 6 14 20 27 7 15 22 29 6 14 20 28 6 13 20 27 4 11 18 26 4 10 18 26 H. 5 11 10 M. 44 A.M. 17 A.M. 56 A.M. 50 A.M. H. M. 5 33 A.M. 11 6 A.M. 10 44 A.M. 2 38 A.M. H. M. 5 20 A.M. 10 53 A.M. 10 32 A.M. 2 26 A.M. H. M. 6 9 A.M. 10 42 A.M. 10 21 A.M. 2 14 A.M. H. M. 4 39 A.M. 10 11 A.M. 9 50 A.M. 1 43 A.M. >> New Moon. First Quarter. Full Moon. Last Quarter. 12 3 9 4 38 A.M. 50 A.M. 19 P.M. 31 VM 12 26 A.M. 3 38 A.M. 9 8 P.M. 4 20 P.M. 12 14 A.M. 3 26 A.M. 8 55 P.M. 4 7 P.M . 12 2 A.M. 3 13 A.M. 8 44 P.M. 3 56 P.M. 5d 11 31 P.M. 2 42 A.M. 8 13 P.M. 3 25 P.M. fi( New Moon. First Quarter. Full Moon. Last Quarter. 7 4 7 8 38 P.M. 14 P.M. 12 A.M. 13 A.M. 7 27 P.M. 4 2 P.M. 7 0 A.M. 8 2 A.M. 7 14 P.M. 3 50 P.M. 6 48 A.M. 7 50 A.M. 7 3 P.M. 3 38 P.M. 6 37 A.M. 7 38 A.M. 6 32 P.M. • 3 8 P.M. 6 6 A.M. 7 7 A.M. , iy Ilar/iin/j & Lcfjm-cL, I'ctU Malt Ji'toft ■ 'MUM W. MimS€MMlLlL ("i7%pmy a/ ^?^f^x/QM':'&^9^Jj^M^ ^^ M^J^i^i^^ rf G^:^(Z^r9?yQ.n^M^H^ii^a/^. Itadi-j- the Superjjitcntl2B.ct of the Society for Ibe DifTnsion ui' ITsefiil Knini-^eclg'e. J\d>llslmi bi- Churhis JUtitjhi.Xvd^aUSTfcH.Zi'fuI^'n-, ■ JEryi9f(di iy W.T.Fru. HAllIEY, T^ubHskfil. ty WrX /V>-.?:c:." U-itfim . H IC® ILiX^y CC ©Fl MWH iC © „ QjMtTrffy iii:/p. JOHN KEPLER, ^^^^^^ ^ ^^9. ^v^- ^ Porlra'Ll Gal I eiy of Hoggs Weekly Lustructor. JfalLore, ^pnl SS"^MSI . (^l^^^^l^ Ma/i^/^y (2 (i>';'za-l>a^t^&ay-^u 0.c7ol.'^e,&^i Io7i.don.Pu2iUo7i^,A iyMajurulloji, rk C." J.Maea.piiJX^ ]D)sAS^^®MS(D ffi)l£:.WlLIL(£)A. c AP t: JAMES c o o iv . r. r.s, Jifi^m ,->-i-,u<^t,ial PariUiiuJ ill. ik {>t^io^m <•/ Si 1' .hwC/lll Jin h/ix ■•. / le}i%f3t(iy'' oi.iN-rrn.'s cregor^", \..iax r.R.A ,s^ ,>vl-. -^ )J^ il€QlLAQ €®F1M'1II€@. C' — /^) ■ UiitLer the SiTperxntimdauce nf itii- Sootety for the Biffasioii of TJseixil :Kiiowleage- Zondttn- PubUfhed. by tfiarltis JSiighz BM JtaS Etisr,. ■sj(s)mw ib'ibjsi'=s°au. Iim mAMQ M1EWT@M.^ ./^i- Ua/dcu^fJi?//^^^ lUulfv i3ie .'aipermloTiaance nf the Sociiely for flic JJdtfasioua of UscfcQ Ivaowled Zi'lulan.Ad'tished //y UMrf-Ai- M>aa/aJka MuJl i:,ijt . Sminif.:! hv . I. JOfi elwhit,- . LA PILA^aiM Under tiie SiapcrijUKiidHJu-e of flli: Sncicty lor Die IJilliisiou ojnseJiil Kiumaeiit!,-c. Z,itiJ/)w,Jii3>TtfliM'by CharlAt KniglUr.TaO'Mall'Siusb. GALILEO GALILEL i^EH MWM2FEM.1ET E)M:WY. Qy^60n-/^M&^ ^Ufima/ <■ - ^.^cla / /- ■ ;/ -■i^l/^A^yJ'C'Me/jum- .^x:^' '^fr,':'/^.a/\,'^rf'/-r///y. Viulrr till- SuiH rJiiU-n.injiro ,.r llir- Horj^lv lir ihc- DilTiuviifli nl' lUirfiil KhuwIwIe;.-. ^^+yt,^^Hii (>j ^^^^i^/^^i iSEFiFLlEia. Ifnilrt I he SiipcfimtiMiiijui-Riil' iJir- Horiftiv Jur tIu" T)iT£i.iaii)n iil* ltsi'fiilKTiriwUiilj--i' f^mJjiii.nililipiiai *, auirlA! I{ni-yfip,,l.u4t)l>!t£ •iva^;& I'aJI- MnTt,M.t.d,- ^:-, M ;v^.- F]E®FESS®Bl Mmm )flM 7A, J ^ 'iJfcU,i d>'<^'^'^ ' ?u/^ hf^^le^', (Jam/zit^ Dndiir-die Supei-iiiteiidme.? oJ' tlie SociL-tv Ibr i.Uo Diriiisioii ol Usdli: ImuwlcdH-e. ZutLdoTi,:FiLf>ljfhed iy L>lij?=l^-J0ag7,t.Luilgati!, Street. S, FaU llaU- X,i/C. TYCHO BRAHE. '^■^'■aied buJ'Rak" rALILEO GALILEI. From a Picture in the Public Library in Oxford. ^?/:GBAI'EI] BYSA/ylirSL SAR TAW. THE ajUGIMiL- £¥ H. V/YA'TT, !L Q L E ® o Tensile Strength of Materials. 79 WEIGHT OF WATER. ubic iiu'li culiic Inclu's (.■ubii'fool(s:ill)... (■ubicloot(tresli).. cubic fool cubic leet 112. 0 ubicfoet '22J0.0 c.\ liiuii-ical inch cyliiidricfil inches cylindrical foot — .08017 poiiuiL .484 pound. 64,8 pounds. 62.5 poiind.s. 7. 48052 U. S. guls pounds. pounds. .02842 pound. .341 pound. 49. 10 pounds. 1 c.vliud ricii.1 Joot. . 2. 282 cylindrical icet. . 45.64 cylindrical fppt. . 1 imperial gallon.. 11.2 imperial ir.illous.. 224 imperial gallouH.. I U. S. gallon . 13.44 IT. H. gallons, 268.8 "U. W. gallons . 6.0 . 112.0 .2240.0 . 10. 0 . 112.0 .2240,0 8.855 . 112.0 2240. 0 U. 8. gals, pounds. poinids. pounds. pounds. pounds. pound.s. pouud.s. pounds. IS'OTB.— The centre of pressui-e of a body of waier is at two- thirds the depth from the surface. THEORETICAL VELOCITY OF WATER IN FEET PER SECOND. Hbap.Kickt. Velocity, Feet per Second. Head, 1'bbt. 25 80 35 40 45 50 Velocity, rwi per Secoml. 55 60 65 70 80 Velocity, Feet per Secc'md. HK...FKHT. VelociH.Feet per Secoua. 10 12 15 18 20 22 25. 4 27.8 81.1 34.0 35.9 37.6 40.1 48. 9 47.4 50.7 53.8 56.7 59.5 62. 1 64.7 67.1 69. 5 71.8 85 90 95 100 125 150 74.0 76.1 78.2 80.3 89.7 98.8 PRESSURE OF WATER PER SQUARE INCH AT DIFFERENT ELEVATIONS. Height Height Height JlKIGRT Fkkt. Pressure. Fkkt. Pressure. Fkkt. ■ I''""""''- Fkct. Pressure. 6 2.60 35 15.16 90 38.98 160 69. 31 8 3.40 40 17.32 100 48.31 170 73.04 10 4.33 45 19. 49 .110 47.64 180 77.97 15 6.49 50 21. 65 120 61.98 190 82. 30 20 8.66 60 25.99 130 66.31 200 86.68 25 10. 82 70 ;.o. 32 140 60. 64 215 93.14 30 12.99 80 34.65 150 64.97 230 99.63 ^cmijeratitrc of ^tcam ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE 14.7 DECREES IN FAHRENHEIT SCALE. Pressuhe Defrrees i'llKSSUUK Degrees I'UES^UllK Decrees Pressukk Dugrees Pke of I'KK of Per ,.£ Pkk of Sq. Inch. Temperalnre. Sq. Inch. Tt-mporature. SH. IKCH. Temper.pp r, bolt cast Aui " r.Ued wire mghc. Gold, cast Irou, cast. Low Moor, Nu. 2 Iron, Cast Am Iron, wrouglit, best Swedish bar.. Iron, bolts *' hammered . . . " m.iau of Am " " Eng ** plates, boiler j American ( 4-2,000 l!*,ODO 66,788 n,G98 36,800 24,250 3ti,000 61,2011 34,000 20,000 14.076 18,000 3o,000 72,00n 62,260 63,913 31,829 63,900 48,000 62,000 Wire, Am. . Wrouglit w fvead, cast , ■ milled Platinum, Wire... er, cast Steel, Am. Tool Co Mistered, soft Steel, cast, maxi'm.. plates, crosswise " length- wise Steel, puddled, ex- treme Steel, razor Tin, Banca .... " cast, block Lbs. Avoir. "63,300 66.000 73:6m0 103,0110 1,800 3.32U 2,,'iSO 53,0ii0 4H,U0o 179,980 104,1100 138,000 142,000 88,667 93,7uO 96,300 173,817 160,0011 2,122 6,000 Matkbials. Lbs. Avoir. Tin 10, Antimony 1... Ziuc 11,000 3,600 16,000 e,? lOil 760 77 234 414 118 2, 3.11". 3„MiO 16,0UU 330 070 2,800 6,'.'0O 9,000 72 16,000 9,000 37,000 " sheet Brick, fire " Inferior. " well burne.l... Cement, bluestone. . . . hydraulic... " Portland, 6 mo Chalk (itos, crown Leather belts M.§bush.. 13^bush >6tol>^bush. I>^bush 8 to 15 bush..., 10 to 12 bush. 4.to8oz 2to51bs 10 to 15 bush. 20qts CENTRAL AND WESTERN STATES. OtoSqts. 6ats 16-: 41- 16-3' 13-:' 40- 8-J, 13-].' 14-'. 10- ji 8 1 10-}' 16- J 8-1 15-V Corn Wheat Oats Barley Kye Buckwheat White beans... Potatoes Turnips Mangels Flax Tobacco Hay Apr.lto.Tunel... Fall or Spr'ng Apr.l to Mayl. .. Fall or Spring (1). Sept. 1 to 30 June MaylOto JunelO. Blar. 15 to June 1 . Julyl5toAug.30. Apr.l to Way 15.. Mar. 15 to May 15. Seed bed. Mar Apr, to May Black or sandy loam. Strong loam Clay loam Clay loam Light loam Clay loam Clay loam , .Sandy loam Loam or muclc Sandy loam Loam Sandy loam Clay loam 5 to 10 tons Stons Stons Stons Stons Stons Stons 5 to 10 tons 8 to 10 tons.... 8 to 12 tons.... 10 to 15 tons.. 8 to 10 tons..... lOtons Oqts 2 bush 2 to 3 bush.... 2 bush . 1 to 2 bush . . . . 1 to 2 bush l^bnsh 5 to 10 bu h.., lto61b.s 6to81bs 2 to 3 pecks..., Oz. to 6 sq. rd. 8 to 15 lbs 16- 40-4 12-1 11 11 35-4 10-1 1 10-2; 10-1 22- S 15-'3 15-1 r Cotton Corn Wheat Oats.. Barley E.ve White beans ... Cabbage Watermelons... Onions Potatoes Sweet potatoes. Pumpkins Tomatoes Turnips Tobacco Cow peas Feb. to May 15.... Feb. to June Sept. to Nov Feb., May, Sept... Apr. to May Sept. to Oct Mar. to May Oct., Mar. to May. Mar. 1 to May 10. . Feb. 1 to Apr. 10.. Jan. , Feb. to Apr. May to June Apr. 1 to Mayl. .. Jan.l to Feb. 19... Feb., Aug., Apr.. Seed bed. Mar . . ■. . Mayl to July 15. . SOUTHEKN feT.ATES. Sandy]oam(2) Rich loam Clay loam (2) CIa.vloani (2) , Clay loam (2) Clay loam (2) Light loam Light loam Rich, light loam... Loam or muck Light loose loam . . . Sandy loam Rich, light loam... Rich, sandy loam... Rich, light loam... Sandy loam Sandv loam 10 bush. cot. seed,. 8 tons StolOtons StolOtous lOtons.. ..-..,. 8 tons 6to lOtons.... Stons; aOOlbs. ler.. 1 to 3 bush.. 8qts 2 bush 2% bush 2)^bush l>^bn,sh 1 10 2 bush.. ,^to> 18-3 4 1 1 4 1 16- 16-2 11-1 12-1 17-2 14-2 8-1 18-2' 6 . (1) Thestaudard varieties of seed planted in tlie several sections of the United States are as lol lows: Corn— New England, learning, sanford, flint; Middle States, leaming, white dent, yellow denti Central and Western .Stctes, leaming, sanford, flint, white dent; Southern States, hickory king, goard seed. Cox prolific. Wheat— Middle States, ftiltz; Central and Western States, fultz, pooIe, fife Southern States, fulcaster. Oats— New England, white; Middle States, white, liliick ; Central an< Western States, gray Norway, silver mine, Russian; Southern States, Texas riisl|ii-(iof. Barley- Middle States, mansbury; Soutliern States, Tennessee Winter. Kye— New England, white; JNtiddl, States, white. Winter: Central and Western States, Winter; Southern States, excelsior Winter. Buck Wheat— Middle States, .silver hull; Central and Western States, silvorhuU. Potatoes— New England green mountain, carmen 3, rose; Middle States, rose, carmen 3, rural 2; Central and Wester) States, hebron, rural, early rose, early Ohio. Tobacco— Central and Western States, yellow prior Spanish, white burley. Hay, clover— Middle States, medium red. Sweet Potatoes— Middle States yellow Jersey ; Southern States, yellow Jersey. Cotton— Southern States, Texasstormproof. Sprin^ wheat is to some e.xtent grown iu Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and many other States. It matures ii eighteen to twentv weeks. (2) la Texas the hlai'k loam is a good soil for cotton, corn, wheat and niost other field crops. Hiiictpal WiltmmtB of tlje stcm. Sun Moi-cury.. Venus Eanh iStars Jupiter..,. Saiuni ISfei)luu as .... Menu ' Bisuiuce froinSun, Millions of Miles. 36.0 Gl.'J. 92.8 141.5 483.3 886.0 1781. 9 2791. 6 Sidereal Period, Days. 87.969 224. 701 365. 25() 686. 95 4332. .58 10759. 22 30686. 82 60181. 11 Orbit Velocity, Miles per aecoud. 23 to 35 21. 9 18.5 15.0 8.1 6.0 4.2 3.4 Mean Diameter, Miles. 866,400 3.030 7,700 7,918 4,230 80.500 71.000 31.900 34,800 Mass, Earth =1. 331100 0.125 0.78 1.00 0.107 316. 0 94.9 14.7 17.1 Volume, Eart:!i =1. 1310000 0.056 0.92 1.00 0.152 1309 721 65 85 Density, Earth =1. 0.25 2.23 0.86 1.00 0.72 0.24 0.13 0.22 0.20 Gravity at .Sur- face, Earth =1. 27.65 0.85 0.83 1.00 0.38 2.65 1.18 0.91 0.88 The uumberof asteroids discovered up to present date is about 465. A number of these small planets have not been observed since their discovery, and are practically lost. Consequently it ' '""V sometimes a matter of doubt, until the elements have been computed, Avhether the .supposed 's really new, or only au old one rediscovered.