Title: The Moon Hoax - A Discovery that the Moon has a Vast Population of Human Beings
Author: Locke, Richard Adams
Language: English
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[Illustration: THE MOON, AS SEEN BY LORD ROSSE'S TELESCOPE. 1856.]


THE MOON HOAX;

OR,

A DISCOVERY THAT THE MOON
HAS A VAST POPULATION OF HUMAN BEINGS.


BY

RICHARD ADAMS LOCKE.


Illustrated with a View of the Moon,

AS SEEN BY LORD ROSSE'S TELESCOPE.


"The clouds still rested on one half of it, insomuch that I could
discover nothing in it; but the other appeared to me a vast ocean
planted with innumerable islands, that were covered with fruits and
flowers, and interwoven with a thousand little shining seas that
ran among them. I could see persons dressed in glorious habits with
garlands upon their heads, passing among the trees, lying down by the
sides of fountains, or resting on beds of flowers; and could hear a
confused harmony of singing birds, falling waters, human voices, and
musical instruments. Gladness grew in me upon the discovery of so
delightful a scene. I wished for the wings of an eagle, that I might
fly away to those happy seats; but the genius told me there was no
passage to them except through the gates of death that I saw opening
every moment upon the bridge."
ADDISON.


[Illustration: Logo]


NEW YORK: WILLIAM GOWANS, 1859.



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by

WILLIAM GOWANS,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for
the Southern District of New York.



ADVERTISEMENT.


It appears to be as natural for the human mind to be craving after the
wonderful, the mysterious, the marvellous, and the new discoveries, as
it is for the physical appetite to desire food, drink, and sleep, and
thereby as it were constantly attempting to lift up the veil that hides
incomprehensibilities from our vision.

This interposition was, no doubt, wisely ordained, for the gazing upon
such mysteries might strike us blind, and rob us of the little stock of
happiness allotted to us while probationers here. May this longing not
be the germ of the proof of our immortality?

The history of the human race is not only filled with instances of
this kind of craving, but it is universal, from the loftiest minds
as approach nearest the deity, such as Newton, La Place, and Mrs.
Somerville, down to the most untutored savage that roams the forest
wilds. Hence the key to the popularity of these charming productions
which fascinate our youth and continue to delight our manhood by
letting us into the supposed mysteries of an enchanting fairy land,
with a grace of narrative that quite takes us captive, while our
curiosity and wonder is raised to the highest pitch in watching the
developements unfolded in the narratives of these authors, and quite
impatient till we learn the result of the plot, or discovery.

I allude to such productions as the Arabian Nights, Sir Thomas More's
Utopia, Bishop Berkeley's Adventures of Signior Gaudentio Di Lucca,
Swift's Gulliver's Travels, De Foe's Robinson Crusoe, Bunyan's
Pilgrim's Progress, and Lord Erskine's Armata, besides numerous others
of a similar character but of a less celebrated reputation.

Among this class of extraordinary fictitious narratives and supposed
discovery, may be placed the renowned Moon Hoax, by Richard Adams
Locke. When it first made its appearance from day to day in one of the
morning papers, the interest in the discovery was intense, so much so
that the circulation of the paper augmented five fold, and in fact,
was the means of giving the journal a permanent footing as a daily
newspaper. Nor did this multiplied circulation of the paper satisfy
the public appetite. The proprietors of the journal had an edition of
60,000 published in pamphlet form, which were sold off in less than one
month; and of late this pamphlet edition has become so scarce that a
single copy was lately sold at the sale of Mr. Haswell's Library for
$3.75.

The book is still in demand. As an instance of this the following will
give some idea at what pains and cost some will go to procure it. I
lately had a letter from a Gentleman residing in Wisconsin, making
inquiry if I had such a book, he further informed me that his attention
had been called to my book establishment in consequence of having sent
to the _Sunday Times_, published in this city, the following query,
"Can you inform me if such a book can be procured, and if so where,
as 'The celebrated Moon Hoax?'" The answer was that if it could be
procured at all, it would be at 85 Centre Street, New York. By this
circuitous method, this dilligent far-west bookcollector procured his
copy of the "Moon Hoax" to his great satisfaction.

August 1, 1859.      PUBLISHER.



GREAT

ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES

LATELY MADE

BY SIR JOHN HERSCHEL, L.L., D.F.R.S., &c.,

AT THE

CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.

FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE NEW YORK SUN IN AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER, 1835, FROM
THE SUPPLEMENT TO THE EDINBURGH JOURNAL OF SCIENCE.


In this unusual addition to our Journal, we have the happiness of
making known to the British public, and thence to the whole civilized
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 a 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 Zodiack around him with a loftier
consciousness of his mental supremacy.

It is impossible to contemplate any great Astronomical discovery
without feelings closely allied to a sensation of awe, and nearly akin
to those with which a departed spirit may be supposed to discover the
realities of a future state. Bound by the irrevocable laws of nature
to the globe on which we live, creatures "close shut up in infinite
expanse," it seems like acquiring a fearful supernatural power when any
remote mysterious works of the Creator yield tribute to our curiosity.
It seems almost a presumptuous usurpation of powers denied us by the
divine will, when man, in the pride and confidence of his skill, steps
forth, far beyond the apparently natural boundary of his privileges,
and demands the secrets and familiar fellowship of other worlds. We
are assured that when the immortal philosopher to whom mankind is
indebted for the thrilling wonders now first made known, had at length
adjusted his new and stupendous apparatus with a certainty of success,
he solemnly paused several hours before he commenced his observations,
that he might prepare his own mind for discoveries which he knew would
fill the minds of myriads of his fellow-men with astonishment, and
secure his name a bright, if not transcendant conjunction with that
of his venerable father to all posterity. 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
knowledge at all comparable in sublime interest to that which he has
been the honored agent in supplying; and we are taught to believe that,
when a work, already preparing for the press, in which his discoveries
are embodied in detail, shall be laid before the public, they will be
found of incomparable importance to some of the grandest operations of
civilized life. Well might he pause! He was about to become the sole
depository of wondrous secrets which had been hid from the eyes of
all men that had lived since the birth of time. He was about to crown
himself with a diadem of knowledge which would give him a conscious
pre-eminence above every individual of his species who then lived, or
who had lived in the generations that are passed away. He paused ere he
broke the seal of the casket which contained it.

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 terrestrial objects at the distance
of a hundred yards; has affirmatively settled the question whether
this satellite be inhabited, and by what order of beings; has firmly
established a new theory of cometary phenomena; and has solved or
corrected nearly every leading problem of mathematical astronomy.

For our early and almost exclusive information concerning these
facts, we are indebted to the devoted friendship of Dr. Andrew Grant,
the pupil of the elder, and for several years past the inseperable
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 operation,
Dr. Grant has been enabled to supply us with intelligence equal,
in general interest at least, to that which Dr. Herschel himself
has transmitted to the Royal Society. Indeed our correspondent
assures us that the voluminous documents now before a committee of
that institution contain little more than details and mathematical
illustrations of the facts communicated to us in his own ample
correspondence. For permission to indulge his friendship in
communicating 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. The engravings
of lunar animals and other objects, and of the phases of the several
planets, are accurate copies of drawings taken in the observatory
by Herbert Home, Esq., who accompanied the last powerful series of
reflectors from London to the Cape, and superintended their erection;
and he has thus recorded the proofs of their triumphant success. The
engravings of the belts of Jupiter is a reduced copy of an imperial
folio drawing by Dr. Herschel himself, and contains the results of his
latest observation of that planet. The segment of the inner ring of
Saturn is from a large drawing by Dr. Grant.

We first avail ourselves of the documents which contain a description
and history of the instrument by which these stupendous discoveries
have been made. A knowledge of the one is essential to the credibility
of the other.


THE YOUNGER HERSCHEL'S TELESCOPE.

It is well known that the great reflecting telescope of the late elder
Herschel, with an object-glass four feet in diameter, and a tube forty
feet in length, possesses a magnifying power of more than six thousand
times. But a small portion of this power was ever advantageously
applied to the nearer astronomical objects; for the deficiency of
light from objects so highly magnified, rendered them less distinct
than when viewed with a power of a third or fourth of this extent.
Accordingly the powers which he generally applied when observing
the moon or planets, and with which he made his most interesting
discoveries, ranged from 220, 460, 750, and 900 times; although, when
inspecting the double and treble fixed stars, and the more distant
nebulæ, he frequently applied the full capacity of his instrument.
The law of optics, that an object becomes dim in proportion as it is
magnified, seemed, from its exemplification in this powerful telescope,
to form an insuperable boundary to further discoveries in our solar
system. Several years, however, prior to the death of this venerable
astronomer, he conceived it practicable to construct an improved series
of parabolic and spherical reflectors, which, by uniting all the
meritorious points in the Gregorian and Newtonian instruments, with the
highly interesting achromatic discovery of Dolland, would, to a great
degree, remove the formidable obstruction. His plan evinced the most
profound research in optical science, and the most dexterous ingenuity
in mechanical contrivance; but accumulating infirmities, and eventually
death, prevented its experimental application. His son, the present
Sir John Herschel, who had been nursed and cradled in the observatory,
and a practical astronomer from his boyhood, was so fully convinced
of the value of the theory, that he determined upon testing it, at
whatever cost. Within two years of his father's death he completed
his new apparatus, and adapted it to the old telescope with nearly
perfect success. He found that the magnifying power of 6,000 times,
when applied to the moon, which was the severest criterion that could
be selected, produced, under these new reflectors, a focal object
of exquisite distinctness, free from every achromatic obscurity, and
containing the highest degree of light which the great speculum could
collect from that luminary.

The enlargement of the angle of vision which was thus acquired, is
ascertained by dividing the moon's distance from the observatory by
the magnifying power of the instrument; and the former being 240,000
miles, and the latter 6,000 times, leaves a quotient of 40 miles as
the apparent distance of that planet from the eye of the observer. Now
it is well known that no terrestrial objects can be seen at a greater
distance than this, with the naked eye, even from the most favorable
elevations. The rotundity of the earth prevents a more distant view
than this with the most acute natural vision, and from the highest
eminences; and, generally, objects seen at this distance are themselves
elevated on mountainous ridges. It is not pretended, moreover, that
this forty miles telescopic view of the moon presented its objects with
equal distinctness, though it did in equal size to those of this earth,
so remotely stationed.

The elder Herschel had nevertheless demonstrated, that with a power
of 1,000 times, he could discern objects in this satellite of not
more than 122 yards in diameter. If therefore the full capability of
the instrument had been elicited by the new apparatus of reflectors
constructed by his son, it would follow, in mathematical ratio, that
objects could be discerned of not more than 22 yards in diameter. Yet
in either case they would be seen as mere feeble, shapeless points,
with no greater conspicuity than they would exhibit upon earth to
the unaided eye at the distance of forty miles. But although the
rotundity of the earth presented no obstruction to a view of these
astronomical objects, we believe Sir John Herschel never insisted
that he had carried out these extreme powers of the telescope in so
full a ratio. The deficiency of light, though greatly economised
and concentrated, still maintained some inverse proportion to the
magnitude of the focal image. The advance he had made in the knowledge
of this planet, though magnificent and sublime, was thus but partial
and unsatisfactory. He was, it is true, enabled to confirm some
discoveries of former observers, and to confute those of others.
The existence of volcanoes discovered by his father and by Schroeter
of Berlin, and the changes observed by the latter in the volcano in
the _Mare Crisium_ or Lucid Lake, were corroborated and illustrated,
as was also the prevalence of far more extensive volcanic phenomena.
The disproportionate height attributed to the lunar mountains was
corrected from careful admeasurement; whilst the celebrated conical
hills, encircling valleys of vast diameter, and surrounding the lofty
central hills, were distinctly perceived. The formation which Professor
Frauenhofer uncharitably conjectured to be a lunar fortification,
he ascertained to be a tabular buttress of a remarkably pyramidical
mountain; lines which had been whimsically pronounced roads and canals,
he found to be keen ridges of singularly regular rows of hills; and
that which Schroeter imagined to be a great city in the neighborhood of
_Marius_, he determined to be a valley of disjointed rocks scattered
in fragments, which averaged at least a thousand yards in diameter.
Thus the general geography of the planet, in its grand outlines of
cape, continent, mountain, ocean, and island, was surveyed with greater
particularity and accuracy than by any previous observer; and the
striking dissimilarity of many of its local features to any existing on
our own globe, was clearly demonstrated. The best enlarged maps of that
luminary which have been published were constructed from this survey;
and neither the astronomer nor the public ventured to hope for any
great accession to their developments. The utmost power of the largest
telescope in the world had been exerted in a new and felicitous manner
to obtain them, and there was no reasonable expectation that a larger
one would ever be constructed, or that it could be advantageously
used if it were. A law of nature, and the finitude of human skill,
seemed united in inflexible opposition to any further improvement in
telescopic science, as applicable to the known planets and satellites
of the solar system. For unless the sun could be prevailed upon to
extend a more liberal allowance of light to these bodies, and they
be induced to transfer it, for the generous gratification of our
curiosity, what adequate substitute could be obtained? Telescopes do
not create light, they cannot even transmit unimpaired that which
they receive. That anything further could be derived from human skill
in the construction of instruments, the labors of his illustrious
predecessors, and his own, left the son of Herschel no reason to hope.
Huygens, Fontana, Gregory, Newton, Hadley, Bird, Short, Dolland,
Herschel, and many others, all practical opticians, had resorted to
every material in any wise adapted to the composition either of lenses
or reflectors, and had exhausted every law of vision which study had
developed and demonstrated. In the construction of his last amazing
specula, Sir John Herschel had selected the most approved amalgams
that the advanced stage of metallic chemistry had combined; and had
watched their growing brightness under the hands of the artificer with
more anxious hope than ever lover watched the eye of his mistress;
and he had nothing further to expect than they had accomplished. He
had the satisfaction to know that if he could leap astride a cannon
ball, and travel upon its wings of fury for the respectable period of
several millions of years, he would not obtain a more enlarged view of
the distant stars than he could now possess in a few minutes of time;
and that it would require an ultra-railroad speed of fifty miles an
hour, for nearly the live-long year, to secure him a more favorable
inspection of the gentle luminary of night. The interesting question,
however, whether this light of the solemn forest, of the treeless
desert, and of the deep blue ocean as it rolls; whether this object of
the lonely turret, of the uplifted eye on the deserted battle-field,
and of all the pilgrims of love and hope, of misery and despair, that
have journeyed over the hills and valleys of this earth, through all
the eras of its unwritten history to those of its present voluminous
record; the exciting question, whether this "observed" of all the sons
of men, from the days of Eden to those of Edinburgh, be inhabited by
beings like ourselves, of consciousness and curiosity, was left for
solution to the benevolent index of natural analogy, or to the severe
tradition that it is tenanted only by the hoary solitaire whom the
criminal code of the nursery had banished thither for collecting fuel
on the Sabbath-day.

The limits of discovery in the planetary bodies, and in this one
especially, thus seemed to be immutably fixed; and no expectation was
elevated for a period of several years. But, about three years ago, in
the course of a conversational discussion with Sir David Brewster upon
the merits of some ingenious suggestions by the latter, in his article
on optics in the Edinburgh Encyclopedia (p. 644), for improvements in
the Newtonian Reflectors, Sir John Herschel adverted to the convenient
simplicity of the old astronomical telescopes that were without tubes,
and the object-glass of which, placed upon a high pole, threw its focal
image to a distance of 150, and even 200 feet. Dr. Brewster readily
admitted that a tube was not necessary, provided the focal image
were conveyed into a dark apartment, and there properly received by
reflectors. Sir John then said that, if his father's great telescope,
the tube alone of which, though formed of the lightest suitable
materials, weighed 3,000 lbs., possessed an easy and steady mobility
with its heavy observatory attached, an observatory moveable without
the incumbrance of such a tube, was obviously practical. This also was
admitted, and the conversation became directed to that all-invincible
enemy. The paucity of light in powerful magnifiers. After a few
moments' 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_! Sir David, somewhat startled at the
originality of the idea, paused awhile, 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 illuminated microscope, say the hydro-oxygen, be applied to
render distinct, and, if necessary, even to magnify the focal object?"
Sir David sprung from his chair in an ecstacy of conviction, and
leaping half-way to the ceiling, exclaimed, "Thou art the man!" Each
philosopher anticipated the other in presenting the prompt illustration
that if the rays of the hydro-oxygen microscope, passed through a drop
of water containing the larvæ of a gnat and other objects invisible to
the naked eye, rendered them not only keenly but firmly magnified to
dimensions of many feet; so could the same artificial light, passed
through the faintest focal object of a telescope, both distinctify (to
coin a new word for an extraordinary occasion) and magnify its feeblest
component members. The only apparent desideratum was a recipient for
the focal image which should transfer it, without refranging it, to the
surface on which it was to be viewed under the revivifying light of the
microscopic reflectors. In the various experiments made during the few
following weeks, the co-operative philosophers decided that a medium of
the purest plate glass (which it is said they obtained, by consent, be
it observed, from the shop window of Mons. Desanges, the jeweller to
his ex-majesty Charles X., in High street) was the most eligible they
could discover. It answered perfectly with a telescope which magnified
100 times, and a microscope of about thrice that power.

Sir John Herschel then conceived the stupendous fabric of his present
telescope. The power of his father's instrument would still leave him
distant from his favorite planet nearly forty miles, and he resolved to
attempt a greater magnifier. Money, the wings of science as the sinews
of war, seemed the only requisite, and even the acquisition of this,
which is often more difficult than the task of Sisyphus, he determined
to achieve. Fully sanctioned by the high optical authority of Sir David
Brewster, he laid his plan before the Royal Society, and particularly
directed to it the attention of His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex,
the ever munificent patron of science and the arts. It was immediately
and enthusiastically approved by the committee chosen to investigate
it, and the chairman, who was the Royal President, subscribed his name
for a contribution of £10,000, with a promise that he would zealously
submit the proposed instrument as a fit object for the patronage of
the privy purse. He did so without delay, and his Majesty, on being
informed that the estimated expense was £70,000, naively inquired if
the costly instrument would conduce to any improvement in _navigation_?
On being informed that it undoubtedly would, the sailor King promised a
_carte blanch_ for the amount which might be required.

Sir John Herschel had submitted his plans and calculations in
adaptation to an object-glass of twenty-four feet in diameter: just six
times the size of his venerable father's. For casting this ponderous
mass, he selected the large glass-house of Messrs. Hartly and Grant,
(the brother of our invaluable friend Dr. Grant) at Dumbarton. The
material chosen was an amalgamation of two parts of the best crown with
one of flint glass, the use of which, in separate lenses, constituted
the great achromatic discovery of Dolland. It had been found, however,
by accurate experiments, that the amalgam would as completely triumph
over every impediment, both from refrangibility and discoloration, as
the separate lenses. Five furnaces of the metal, carefully collected
from productions of the manufactory, in both the kinds of glass, and
known to be respectively of nearly perfect homogenous quality, were
united, by one grand conductor, to the mould; and on the third of
January, 1833, the first cast was effected. After cooling eight days,
the mould was opened, and the glass found to be greatly flawed within
eighteen inches of the centre. Notwithstanding this failure, a new
glass was more carefully cast on the 27th of the same month, which
on being opened during the first week of February, was found to be
immaculately perfect, with the exception of two slight flaws so near
the line of its circumference that they would be covered by the copper
ring in which it was designed to be enclosed.

The weight of this prodigious lens was 14,826 lbs. or nearly seven tons
after being polished; and its estimated magnifying power 42,000 times.
It was therefore presumed to be capable of representing objects in
our lunar satellite of little more than eighteen inches in diameter,
provided its focal image of them could be rendered distinct by the
transfusion of artificial light. It was not, however, upon the mere
illuminating power of the hydro-oxygen microscope, as applied to the
focal pictures of this lens, that the younger Herschel depended for
the realization of his ambitious theories and hopes. He calculated
largely upon the almost illimitable applicability of this instrument
as a second magnifier, which would supersede the use, and infinitely
transcend the powers of the highest magnifiers in reflecting telescopes.

So sanguinely indeed did he calculate upon the advantages of this
splendid alliance, that he expressed confidence in his ultimate ability
to study even the entomology of the moon, in case she contained insects
upon her surface. Having witnessed the completion of this great lens,
and its safe transportation to the metropolis, his next care was the
construction of a suitable microscope, and of the mechanical frame-work
for the horizontal and vertical action of the whole. His plans in every
branch of his undertaking having been intensely studied, even to their
minutest details, were easily and rapidly executed. He awaited only the
appointed period at which he was to convey his magnificent apparatus to
its destination.

A correspondence had for some time passed between the Boards of
England, France, and Austria, with a view to improvements in the
tables of longitude in the southern hemisphere; which are found to
be much less accurate than those of the northern. The high opinion
entertained by the British Board of Longitude of the principles of the
new telescope, and of the profound skill of its inventor, determined
the government to solicit his services in observing the transit of
Mercury over the sun's disk, which will take place on the 7th of
November in the present year: and which, as it will occur at 7h. 47m.
55s. night, conjunction, meantime; and at 8h. 12m. 22s. middle, true
time, will be invisible to nearly all the northern hemisphere. The
place at which the transits of Mercury and of Venus have generally
been observed by the astronomers of Europe, when occurring under these
circumstances, is the Cape of Good Hope; and no transit of Venus having
occurred since the year 1769, and none being to occur before 1874,
the accurate observation of the transits of Mercury, which occur more
frequently, has been found of great importance both to astronomy and
navigation. To the latter useful art, indeed, the transits of Mercury
are nearly as important as those of Venus; for although those of the
latter planet have the peculiar advantage of determining exactly the
great solar parallax, and thence the distances of all the planets
from the sun, yet the transits of Mercury, by exactly determining
the place of its own node, independently of the parallax of the great
orb, determine the parallax of the earth and moon; and are therefore
especially valuable in lunar observations of Longitude. The Cape of
Good Hope has been found preferable, in these observations, to any
other station in the hemisphere. The expedition which went to Peru,
about the middle of the last century, to ascertain, in conjunction with
another in Lapland, the true figure of the earth, found the attraction
of the mountainous regions so strong as to cause the plum-line of
one of their large instruments to deflect seven or eight seconds
from the true perpendicular; whilst the elevated plains at the Cape
unite all the advantages of a lucid atmosphere with an entire freedom
from mountainous obstruction. Sir John Herschel, therefore, not only
accepted the appointment with high satisfaction, but requested that
it might commence at least a year before the period of the transit,
to afford him time to bring his ponderous and complicated machinery
into perfect adjustment, and to extend his knowledge of the southern
constellations.

His wish was immediately assented to, and his arrangements being
completed, he sailed from London on the 4th of September, 1834,
in company with Dr. Andrew Grant, Lieutenant Drummond, of the
Royal Engineers, F.R.A.S., and a large party of the best English
mechanics. They arrived, after an expeditious and agreeable passage,
and immediately proceeded to transport the lens, and the frame of
the large observatory, to its destined site, which was a piece of
table-land of great extent and elevation, about thirty-five miles to
the north-east of Capetown; and which is said to be the very spot on
which De la Caille, in 1750, constructed his invaluable solar tables,
when he measured a degree of the meridian, and made a great advance, to
exactitude in computing the solar parallax from that of Mars and the
Moon. Sir John accomplished the ascent to the plains by means of two
relief teams of oxen, of eighteen each, in about four days; and, aided
by several companies of Dutch boors, proceeded at once to the erection
of his gigantic fabric.

The ground plan of the structure is in some respects similar to that
of the Herschel telescope in England, except that instead of circular
foundations of brickwork, it consists of parallel circles of railroad
iron, upon wooden framework; so constructed that the turn-outs, or
rather turn-ins, from the largest circle, will conduct the observatory,
which moves upon them, to the innermost circle, which is the basis of
the lens-works; and to each of the circles that intervene. The diameter
of the smallest circle is twenty-eight feet: that of the largest our
correspondent has singularly forgotten to state, though it may be
in some measure computed from the angle of incidence projected by
the lens, and the space occupied by the observatory. The latter is a
wooden building fifty feet square and as many high, with a flat roof
and gutters of thin copper. Through the side proximate to the lens,
is an aperture four feet in diameter to receive its rays, and through
the roof another for the same purpose in meridional observations. The
lens, which is inclosed in a frame of wood, and braced to its corners
by bars of copper, is suspended upon an axis between two pillars which
are nearly as high as those which supported the celebrated quadrant of
Uleg Beg, being one hundred and fifty feet. These are united at the top
and bottom by cross-pieces, and strengthened by a number of diagonal
braces; and between them is a double capstan for hoisting the lens from
its horizontal line with the observatory to the height required by
its focal distance when turned to the meridian; and for elevating it
to any intermediate degree of altitude that may be needed. This last
operation is beautifully regulated by an immense double sextant, which
is connected and moves with the axis of the lens, and is regularly
divided into degrees, minutes, and seconds; and the horizontal circles
of the observatory being also divided into 360 degrees, and minutely
subdivided, the whole instrument has the powers and regularity of the
most improved theodolite. Having no tube, it is connected with the
observatory by two horizontal levers, which pass underneath the floor
of that building from the circular basis of the pillars; thus keeping
the lens always square with the observatory, and securing to both a
uniform and simple movement. By means of these levers, too, a rack and
windlass, the observatory is brought to any degree of approximation
to the pillars that the altitude of an observation may require; and
although, when at its nearest station it cannot command an observation
with the great lens within about fifteen degrees of the meridian, it
is supplied with an excellent telescope of vast power, constructed by
the elder Herschel, by which every high degree can be surveyed. The
field of view, therefore, whether exhibited on the floor or on the
wall of the apartment, has a diameter of nearly fifty feet, and, being
circular, it has therefore an area of nearly 1875 feet. The place of
all the horizontal movements having been accurately levelled by Lieut.
Drummond, with the improved level of his invention which bears his
name, and the wheels both of the observatory and of the lens-works
being facilitated by friction-rollers in patent axle-boxes filled
with oil, the strength of one man applied to the extremity of the
levers is sufficient to propel the whole structure upon either of the
railroad circles; and that of two men applied to the windlass is fully
adequate to bring the observatory to the basis of the pillars. Both of
these movements, however, are now effected by a locomotive apparatus
commanded within the apartment by a single person, and showing, by
means of an ingenious index, every inch of progression or retrogression.

We have not thus particularly described the telescope of the younger
Herschel because we consider it the most magnificent specimen of
philosophical mechanism of the present or any previous age, but
because we deemed an explicit description of its principles and powers
an almost indispensable introduction to a statement of the sublime
expansion of human knowledge which it has achieved. It was not fully
completed until the latter part of December, when the series of large
reflectors for the microscope arrived from England; and it was brought
into operation during the first week of the ensuing month and year.
But the secrecy which had been maintained with regard to its novelty,
its manufacture, and its destination, was not less rigidly preserved
for several months respecting the grandeur of its success. Whether the
British Government were sceptical concerning the promised splendor
of its discoveries, or wished them to be scrupulously veiled until
they had accumulated a a full-orbed glory for the nation and reign in
which they originated, is a question which we can only conjecturally
solve. But certain it is that the astronomer's royal patrons enjoined
a masonic taciturnity upon him and his friends until he should
have officially communicated the results of his great experiment.
Accordingly, the world heard nothing of him or his expedition until
it was announced a few months since in the scientific journals of
Germany, that Sir John Herschel, at the Cape of Good Hope, had written
to the astronomer-royal of Vienna, to inform him that the portentous
comet predicted for the year 1835, which was to approach so near this
trembling globe that we might hear the roaring of its fires, had turned
upon another scent, and would not even shake a hair of its tail upon
our hunting-grounds. At a loss to conceive by what extra authority he
had made so bold a declaration, the men of science in Europe who were
not acquainted with his secret, regarded his "postponement," as his
discovery was termed, with incredulous contumely, and continued to
terrorize upon the strength of former predictions.


NEW LUNAR DISCOVERIES.

Until the 10th of January, the observations were chiefly directed to
the stars in the southern signs, in which, without the aid of the
hydro-oxygen reflectors, a countless number of new stars and nebulæ
were discovered. But we shall defer our correspondent's account of
these to future pages, for the purpose of no longer withholding from
our readers the more generally and highly interesting discoveries which
were made in the lunar world. And for this purpose, too, we shall defer
Dr. Grant's elaborate mathematical details of the corrections which
Sir John Herschel has made in the best tables of the moon's tropical,
sidereal, and synodic revolutions, and of those phenomena of syzygies
on which a great part of the established lunar theory depends.

It was about half-past nine o'clock on the night of the 10th, the moon
having then advanced within four days of her mean libration, that the
astronomer adjusted his instruments for the inspection of her eastern
limb. The whole immense power of his telescope was applied, and to its
focal image about one half of the power of his microscope. On removing
the screen of the latter, the field of view was covered throughout its
entire area with a beautifully distinct, and even vivid representation
of _basaltic rock_. Its color was a greenish brown, and the width
of the columns, as defined by their interstices on the canvass, was
invariably twenty-eight inches. No fracture whatever appeared in the
mass first presented, but in a few seconds a shelving pile appeared of
five or six columns width, which showed their figure to be hexagonal,
and their articulations similar to those of the basaltic formation at
Staffa. This precipitous shelf was profusely covered with a dark red
flower, "precisely similar," says Dr. Grant, "to the Papaver Rhœas, or
rose-poppy of our sublunary cornfields; and this was the first organic
production of nature, in a foreign world, ever revealed to the eyes of
men."

The rapidity of the moon's ascension, or rather of the earth's diurnal
rotation, being nearly equal to five hundred yards in a second, would
have effectually prevented the inspection, or even the discovery
of objects so minute as these, but for the admirable mechanism
which constantly regulates, under the guidance of the sextant, the
required altitude of the lens. But its operation was found to be so
consummately perfect, that the observers could detain the object upon
the field of view for any period they might desire. 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 basaltic rocks continued
to pass over the inclined canvass plane, through three successive
diameters, when a verdant declivity of great beauty appeared, which
occupied two more. This was preceded by another mass of nearly the
former height, at the base of which they were at length delighted to
perceive that novelty, a lunar forest. "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 kind 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
canvass of forty-nine feet, must have been more than half a mile in
breadth; and then appeared as fine a forest of firs, unequivocal 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 insensibly
descending, as it were, a mountainous district of a highly diversified
and romantic character, 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 Nubium of Riccoli,
by which we detected that, instead of commencing, as we supposed, on
the eastern longitude of the planet, some delay in the elevation of
the great lens had thrown us nearly upon the axis of her equator.
However, as she was a free country, and we not, as yet, attached to any
particular province, and moreover, since we could at any moment occupy
our intended position, we again slid in our magic lenses to survey the
shores of the Mare Nubium. Why Riccoli so termed it, unless in ridicule
of Cleomedes, I know not; for fairer shores never angels 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 summit with the
clustering foliage of unknown trees, moved along the bright wall of our
apartment until we were speechless with admiration. The water, wherever
we obtained a view of it, was nearly as blue as that of the deep ocean,
and broke in large white billows upon the strand. The action of very
high tides was quite manifest upon the face of the cliffs for more than
a hundred miles; yet diversified as the scenery was during this and
a much greater distance, we perceived no trace of animal existence,
notwithstanding we could command at will a perspective or a foreground
view of the whole. Mr. Holmes, indeed, pronounced some white objects
of a circular form, which we saw at some distance in the interior of a
cavern, to be bona fide specimens of a large cornu ammonis; but to me
they appeared merely large pebbles, which had been chafed and rolled
there by the tides. Our chase of animal life was not yet to be rewarded.

Having continued this close inspection nearly two hours, during which
we passed over a wide tract of country, chiefly of a rugged and
apparently volcanic character; and having seen few additional varieties
of vegetation, except some species of lichen, which grew everywhere
in great abundance, Dr. Herschel proposed that we should take out all
our lenses, give a rapid speed to the panorama, and search for some of
the principal valleys known to astronomers, as the most likely method
to reward our first night's observation with the discovery of animated
beings. The lenses being removed, and the effulgence of our unutterably
glorious reflectors left undiminished, we found, in accordance with our
calculations, that our field of view comprehended about twenty-five
miles of the lunar surface, with the distinctness both of outline and
detail which could be procured of a terrestrial object at the distance
of two and a half miles; an optical phenomenon which you will find
demonstrated in Note 5. This afforded us the best landscape views we
had hitherto obtained, and although the accelerated motion was rather
too great, we enjoyed them with rapture. Several of those famous
valleys, which are bounded by lofty hills of so perfectly conical a
form as to render them less like works of nature than of art, passed
the canvass before we had time to check their flight; but presently a
train of scenery met our eye, of features so entirely novel, that Dr.
Herschel signalled for the lowest convenient gradation of movement. It
was a lofty chain of obelisk-shaped, or very slender pyramids, standing
in irregular groups, each composed of about thirty or forty spires,
every one of which was perfectly square, and as accurately truncated
as the finest specimens of Cornish crystal. They were of a faint lilac
hue, and very resplendent. I now thought that we had assuredly fallen
on productions of art; but Dr. Herschel shrewdly remarked, that if the
Lunarians could build thirty or forty miles of such monuments as these,
we should ere now have discovered others of a less equivocal character.
He pronounced them quartz formations, of probably the wine-colored
amethyst species, and promised us, from these and other proofs which he
had obtained of the powerful action of laws of crystallization in this
planet, a rich field of mineralogical study. On introducing a lens,
his conjecture was fully confirmed; they were monstrous amethysts,
of a diluted claret color, glowing in the intensest light of the
sun! They varied in height from sixty to ninety feet, though we saw
several of a still more incredible altitude. They were observed in a
succession of valleys divided by longitudinal lines of round-breasted
hills, covered with verdure and nobly undulated; but what is most
remarkable, the valleys which contained these stupendous crystals were
invariably barren, and covered with stones of a ferruginous hue, which
were probably iron pyrites. We found that some of these curiosities
were situated in a district elevated half a mile above the valley of
the Mare Fœcunditatis, of Mayer and Riccioli; the shores of which soon
hove in view. But never was a name more inappropriately bestowed. From
"Dan to Beersheba" all was barren, barren--the sea-board was entirely
composed of chalk and flint, and not a vestige of vegetation could
be discovered with our strongest glasses. The whole breadth of the
northern extremity of this sea, which was about three hundred miles,
having crossed our plane, we entered upon a wild mountainous region
abounding with more extensive forests of larger trees than we had
before seen--the species of which I have no good analogy to describe.
In general contour they resembled our forest oak; but they were much
more superb in foliage, having broad glossy leaves like that of the
laurel, and tresses of yellow flowers which hung, in the open glades,
from the branches to the ground. These mountains passed, we arrived
at a region which filled us with utter astonishment. It was an oval
valley, surrounded, except at a narrow opening towards the south, by
hills, red as the purest vermilion, and evidently crystallized; for
wherever a precipitous chasm appeared--and these chasms were very
frequent, and of immense depth--the perpendicular sections presented
conglomerated masses of polygon crystals, evenly fitted to each other,
and arranged in deep strata, which grew darker in color as they
descended to the foundations of the precipices. Innumerable cascades
were bursting forth from the breasts of every one of these cliffs,
and some so near their summits, and with such great force, as to form
arches many yards in diameter. I never was so vividly reminded of
Byron's simile, "the tale of the white horse in the Revolution." At the
foot of this boundary of hills was a perfect zone of woods surrounding
the whole valley, which was about eighteen or twenty miles wide, at
its greatest breadth, and about thirty in length. Small collections of
trees, of every imaginable kind, were scattered about the whole of the
luxuriant area; and here our magnifiers blest our panting hopes with
specimens of conscious existence. In the shade of the woods on the
south-eastern side, we beheld continuous herds of brown quadrupeds,
having all the external characteristics of the bison, but more
diminutive than any species of the bos genus in our natural history.
Its tail is like that of our bos grunniens; but in its semi-circular
horns, the hump on its shoulders, and the depth of its dewlap, and the
length of its shaggy hair, it closely resembled the species to which
I first compared it. It had, however, one widely distinctive feature,
which we afterwards found common to nearly every lunar quadruped
we have discovered; namely, a remarkable fleshy 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 a cap known to the ladies 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 providential 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
acclivitous glades of the woods. In elegance of symmetry it rivalled
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 a young lamb or kitten. This beautiful
creature afforded us the most exquisite amusement. The mimicry of its
movements upon our white painted canvass was as faithful and luminous
as that of animals within a few yards of the camera obscura, when seen
pictured upon its tympan. Frequently when attempting to put our fingers
upon its beard, it would suddenly 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.

On examining the centre of this delightful valley, we found a large
branching river, abounding with lovely islands, and water-birds of
numerous kinds. A species of grey pelican was the most numerous; but
a black and white crane, with unreasonably long legs and bill, were
also quite common. We watched their pisciverous 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 current which set off from this angle of the island. We
were compelled, however, to leave this prolific valley unexplored,
on account of clouds which were evidently accumulating in the lunar
atmosphere, our own being perfectly translucent. But this was itself
an interesting discovery, for more distant observers had questioned or
denied the existence of any humid atmosphere in this planet.

The moon being now low on her descent, Dr. Herschel inferred that the
increasing refrangibility of her rays would prevent any satisfactory
protraction of our labors, and our minds being actually fatigued with
the excitement of the high enjoyments we had partaken, we mutually
agreed to call in the assistants at the lens, and reward their
vigilant attention with congratulatory bumpers of the best "East
India Particular." It was not, however, without regret that we left
the splendid valley of the red mountains, which, in compliment to the
arms of our royal patron, we denominated "the Valley of the Unicorn;"
and it may be found in Blunt's map, about midway between the Mare
Fœcunditatis and the Mare Nectaris.

The nights of the 11th and 12th being cloudy, were unfavorable
to observation; but on those of the 13th and 14th further animal
discoveries were made of the most exciting interest to every human
being. We give them in the graphic language of our accomplished
correspondent:--

"The astonishing and beautiful discoveries which we had made during our
first night's observation, and the brilliant promise which they gave
of the future, rendered every moonlight hour too precious to reconcile
us to the deprivation occasioned by these two cloudy evenings; and
they were borne with strictly philosophical patience, notwithstanding
that our attention was closely occupied in superintending the erection
of additional props and braces to the twenty-four feet lens, which we
found had somewhat vibrated in a high wind that arose on the morning of
the 11th. The night of the 13th (January) was one of pearly purity and
loveliness. The moon ascended the firmament in gorgeous splendor, and
the stars, retiring around her, left her the unrivalled queen of the
hemisphere. This being the last night but one, in the present month,
during which we should have an opportunity of inspecting her western
limb, on account of the libration in longitude which would thence
immediately ensue, Dr. Herschel informed us that he should direct our
researches to the parts numbered 2, 11, 26, and 20 in Blunt's map, and
which are respectively known in the modern catalogue by the names of
Endymion, Cleomedes, Langrenus, and Petavius. To the careful inspection
of these, and the regions between them and the extreme western rim, he
proposed to devote the whole of this highly favorable night. Taking
then our twenty-five miles breadth of her surface upon the field of
view, and reducing it to a slow movement, we soon found the first very
singularly shaped object of our inquiry. It is a highly mountainous
district, the loftier chains of which form three narrow ovals, two of
which approach each other in slender points, and are united by one
mass of hills of great length and elevation; thus presenting a figure
similar to that of a long skein of thread, the bows of which have been
gradually spread open from their connecting knot. The third oval looks
also like a skein, and lies as if carelessly dropped from nature's
hand in connection with the other; but that which might fancifully be
supposed as having formed the second bow of this second skein is cut
open, and lies in scattered threads of smaller hills which cover a
great extent of level territory. The ground plan of these mountains
is so remarkable that it has been accurately represented in almost
every lineal map of the moon that has been drawn; and in Blunt's,
which is the best, it agrees exactly with my description. Within the
grasp, as it were, of the broken bow of hills last mentioned, stands
an oval-shaped mountain, enclosing a valley of an immense area, and
having on its western ridge a volcano in a state of terrific eruption.
To the north-east of this, across the broken, or what Mr. Holmes called
'the vagabond mountains,' are three other detached oblong formations,
the largest and last of which is marked F in the catalogue, and
fancifully denominated the Mare Mortuum, or more commonly the 'Lake
of Death.' Induced by a curiosity to divine the reason of so sombre
a title, rather than by any more philosophical motive, we here first
applied our hydro-oxygen magnifiers to the focal image of the great
lens. Our twenty-five miles portion of this great mountain circus had
comprehended the whole of its area, and of course the two conical
hills which rise in it about five miles from each other; but although
this breadth of view had heretofore generally presented its objects
as if seen within a terrestrial distance of two and a half miles, we
were, in this instance, unable to discern these central hills with
any such degree of distinctness. There did not appear to be any mist
or smoke around them, as in the case of the volcano which we had
left in the south-west, and yet they were comparatively indistinct
upon the canvass. On sliding in the gas-light lens the mystery was
immediately solved. They were old craters of extinct volcanoes, from
which still issued a heated though transparent exhalation, that kept
them in an apparently oscillatory or trembling motion, most unfavorable
to examination. The craters of both these hills, as nearly as we
could judge under this obstruction, were about fifteen fathoms deep,
devoid of any appearance of fire, and of nearly a yellowish white
color throughout. The diameter of each was about nine diameters of
our painted circle, or nearly 450 feet; and the width of the rim
surrounding them about 1000 feet; yet notwithstanding their narrow
mouths, these two chimneys of the subterranean deep had evidently
filled the whole area of the valley in which they stood with the lava
and ashes with which it was encumbered, and even added to the height,
if not indeed caused the existence of the oval chain of mountains which
surrounded it. These mountains, as subsequently measured, from the
level of some large lakes around them, averaged the height of 2,800
feet; and Dr. Herschel conjectured from this and the vast extent of
their abutments, which ran for many miles into the country around them,
that these volcanoes must have been in full activity for a million of
years. Lieut. Drummond, however, rather supposed that the whole area
of this oval valley was but the exhausted crater of one vast volcano,
which in expiring had left only these two imbecile representatives
of its power. I believe Dr. Herschel himself afterwards adopted this
probable theory, which is indeed confirmed by the universal geology
of the planet. There is scarcely a hundred miles of her surface, not
even excepting her largest seas and lakes, in which circular or oval
mountainous ridges may not be easily found; and many, very many of
these having numerous enclosed hills in full volcanic operation, which
are now much lower than the surrounding circles, it admits of no doubt
that each of these great formations is the remains of one vast mountain
which has burnt itself out, and left only these wide foundations of its
ancient grandeur. A direct proof of this is afforded in a tremendous
volcano, now in its prime, which I shall hereafter notice. What gave
the name of 'The Lake of Death' to the annular mountain I have just
described, was, I suppose, the dark appearance of the valley which
it encloses, and which, to a more distant view than we obtained,
certainly exhibits the general aspect of the waters on this planet. The
surrounding country is fertile to excess: between this circle and No.
2 (Endymion), which we proposed first to examine, we counted not less
than twelve luxuriant forests, divided by open plains, which waved in
an ocean of verdure, and were probably prairies like those of North
America. In three of these we discovered numerous herds of quadrupeds
similar to our friends the bisons in the Valley of the Unicorn, but
of much larger size; and scarcely a piece of woodland occurred in our
panorama which did not dazzle our vision with flocks of white or red
birds upon the wing.

"At length we carefully explored the Endymion. We found each of
the three ovals volcanic and sterile within; but, without, most
rich, throughout the level regions around them, in every imaginable
production of a bounteous soil. 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 ovipara. Among the former is
a small kind of rein-deer, the elk, the moose, the horned bear, and
the biped beaver. The last resembles the beaver of the earth in every
other respect than in 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 moves 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. Still its
head and body differ only in the points stated from that of the beaver,
and it was never seen except on the borders of lakes and rivers, in
which it has been observed to immerse for a period of several seconds.

"Thirty degrees farther south, in No. 11, or Cleomedes, an immense
annular mountain, containing three distinct craters, which have been so
long extinguished that the whole valley around them, which is eleven
miles in extent, is densely crowded with woods nearly to the summits of
the hills. Not a rod of vacant land, except the tops of these craters,
could be descried, and no living creature, except a large white bird
resembling the stork. At the southern extremity of this valley is
a natural archway or cavern, 200 feet high, and 100 wide, through
which runs a river which discharges itself over a precipice of grey
rock 80 feet in depth, and then forms a branching stream through a
beautiful campaign district for many miles. Within twenty miles of this
cataract is the largest lake, or rather inland sea, that has been found
throughout the seven and a half millions of square miles which this
illuminated side of the moon contains. Its width, from east to west,
is 198 miles, and from north to south, 266 miles. Its shape, to the
northward, is not unlike that of the bay of Bengal, and it is studded
with small islands, most of which are volcanic. Two of these, on the
eastern side, are now violently eruptive; but our lowest magnifying
power was too great to examine them with convenience, on account of the
cloud of smoke and ashes which beclouded our field of view: as seen by
Lieut. Drummond, through our reflecting telescope of 2,000 times, they
exhibited great brilliancy. In a bay, on the western side of this sea,
is an island 55 miles long, of a crescent form, crowded through its
entire sweep with the most superb and wonderful natural beauties, both
of vegetation and geology. Its hills are pinnacled with tall quartz
crystals, of so rich a yellow and orange hue that we at first supposed
them to be pointed flames of fire; and they spring up thus from smooth
round brows of hills which are covered as with a velvet mantle. Even
in the enchanting little valleys of this winding island we could often
see these splendid natural spires, mounting in the midst of deep green
woods, like church steeples in the vales of Westmoreland. We here first
noticed the lunar palm-tree, which differs from that of our tropical
latitudes only in the peculiarity of very large crimson flowers,
instead of the spadix protruded from the common calyx. We, however,
perceived no fruit on any specimens we saw: a circumstance which we
attempted to account for from the great (theoretical) extremes in the
lunar climate. On a curious kind of tree-melon we nevertheless saw
fruit in great abundance, and in every stage of inception and maturity.
The general color of these woods was a dark green, though not without
occasional admixtures of every tint of our forest seasons. The hectic
flush of autumn was often seen kindled upon the cheek of earliest
spring; and the gay drapery of summer in some places surrounded trees
leafless as the victims of winter. It seemed as if all the seasons here
united hands in a circle of perpetual harmony. Of animals we saw only
an elegant striped quadruped about three feet high, like a miniature
zebra; which was always in small herds on the green sward of the hills;
and two or three kinds of long-tailed birds, which we judged to be
golden and blue pheasants. On the shores, however, we saw countless
multitudes of univalve shell-fish, and among them some huge flat ones,
which all three of my associates declared to be cornu ammonæ; and I
confess I was here compelled to abandon my sceptical substitution of
pebbles. The cliffs all along these shores were deeply undermined by
tides; they were very cavernous, and yellow crystal stalactites larger
than a man's thigh were shooting forth on all sides. Indeed every
rood of this island appeared to be crystallized; masses of fallen
crystals were found on every beach we explored, and beamed from every
fractured headland. It was more like a creation of an oriental fancy
than a distant variety of nature brought by the powers of science to
ocular demonstration. The striking dissimilitude of this island to
every other we had found on these waters, and its near proximity to
the main land, led us to suppose that it must at some time have been
a part of it; more especially as its crescent bay embraced the first
of a chain of smaller ones which ran directly thither. The first one
was a pure quartz rock, about three miles in circumference, towering
in naked majesty from the blue deep, without either shore or shelter.
But it glowed in the sun almost like a sapphire, as did all the lesser
ones of whom it seemed the king. Our theory was speedily confirmed; for
all the shore of the main land was battlemented and spired with these
unobtainable jewels of nature; and as we brought our field of view to
include the utmost rim of the illuminated boundary of the planet, we
could still see them blazing in crowded battalions as it were, through
a region of hundreds of miles. In fact we could not conjecture where
this gorgeous land of enchantment terminated; for as the rotary motion
of the planet bore these mountain summits from our view, we became
further remote from their western boundary.

"We were admonished by this to lose no time in seeking the next
proposed object of our search, the Langrenus, or No. 26, which is
almost within the verge of the libration in longitude, and of which,
for this reason, Dr. Herschel entertained some singular expectations.

"After a short delay in advancing the observatory upon the levers, and
in regulating the lens, we found our object and surveyed it. It was
a dark narrow lake seventy miles long, bounded, on the east, north,
and west, by red mountains of the same character as those surrounding
the Valley of the Unicorn, from which it is distant to the south-west
about 160 miles. This lake, like that valley, opens to the south upon
a plain not more than ten miles wide, which is here encircled by a
truly magnificent amphitheatre of the loftiest order of lunar hills.
For a semicircle of six miles these hills are riven, from their brow
to their base, as perpendicularly as the outer walls of the Colosseum
at Rome; but here exhibiting the sublime altitude of at least two
thousand feet, in one smooth unbroken surface. How nature disposed of
the huge mass which she thus prodigally carved out, I know not; but
certain it is that there are no fragments of it left upon the plain,
which is a declivity without a single prominence except a billowy tract
of woodland that runs in many a wild vagary of breadth and course to
the margin of the lake. The tremendous height and expansion of this
perpendicular mountain, with its bright crimson front contrasted with
the fringe of forest on its brow, and the verdure of the open plain
beneath, filled our canvass with a landscape unsurpassed in unique
grandeur by any we had beheld. Our twenty-five miles perspective
included this remarkable mountain, the plain, a part of the lake, and
the last graduated summits of the range of hills by which the latter
is nearly surrounded. We ardently wished that all the world could
view a scene so strangely grand, and our pulse beat high with the
hope of one day exhibiting it to our countrymen in some part of our
native land. But we were at length compelled to destroy our picture,
as a whole, for the purpose of magnifying its parts for scientific
inspection. Our plain was of course immediately covered with the ruby
front of this mighty amphitheatre, its tall figures, leaping cascades,
and rugged caverns. As its almost interminable sweep was measured off
upon the canvass, we frequently saw long lines of some yellow metal
hanging from the crevices of the horizontal strata in wild net-work,
or straight pendant branches. We of course concluded that this was
virgin gold, and we had no assay-master to prove to the contrary. On
searching the plain, over which we had observed the woods roving in
all the shapes of clouds in the sky, we were again delighted with
the discovery of animals. The first observed was a quadruped with an
amazingly long neck, head like a sheep, bearing two long spiral horns,
white as polished ivory, and standing in perpendicular parallel to each
other. Its body was like that of the deer, but its fore-legs were most
disproportionally long, and its tail, which was very bushy and of a
snowy whiteness, curled high over its rump, and hung two or three feet
by its side. Its colors were bright bay and white in brindled patches,
clearly defined, but of no regular form. It was found only in pairs, in
spaces between the woods, and we had no opportunity of witnessing its
speed or habits. But a few minutes only elapsed before three specimens
of another animal appeared, so well known to us all that we fairly
laughed at the recognition of so familiar an acquaintance in so distant
a land. They were neither more nor less than three good large sheep,
which would not have disgraced the farms of Leicestershire, or the
shambles of Leadenhall-market. With the utmost scrutiny, we could find
no mark of distinction between these and those of our native soil; they
had not even the appendage over the eyes, which I have described as
common to lunar quadrupeds. Presently they appeared in great numbers,
and on reducing the lenses, we found them in flocks over a great part
of the valley. I need not say how desirous we were of finding shepherds
to these flocks, and even a man with blue apron and rolled up sleeves
would have been a welcome sight to us, if not to the sheep; but they
fed in peace, lords of their own pastures, without either protector or
destroyer in human shape.

"We at length approached the level opening to the lake, where the
valley narrows to a mile in width, and displays scenery on both sides
picturesque and romantic beyond the powers of a prose description.
Imagination, borne on the wings of poetry, could alone gather similes
to portray the wild sublimity of this landscape, where dark behemoth
crags stood over the brows of lofty precipices, as if a rampart in the
sky; and forests seemed suspended in mid air. On the eastern side there
was one soaring crag, crested with trees, which hung over in a curve
like three-fourths of a Gothic arch, and being of a rich crimson color,
its effect was most strange upon minds unaccustomed to the association
of such grandeur with such beauty.

"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 looking 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 towards 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 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 canvass; but of all the others we had a perfectly
distinct and deliberate view. They averaged four feet in height, were
covered, 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 outang, being more open and
intelligent in its expression, and having a much greater expansion
of forehead. The mouth, however, was very prominent, though somewhat
relieved by a thick beard upon the lower jaw, and by lips far more
human than those of any species of the simia genus. In general symmetry
of body and limbs they were infinitely superior to the orang outang;
so much so, that, but for their long wings, Lieut. 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 forehead. 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 canvass, and whenever we afterwards saw
them, these creatures were evidently engaged in conversation; their
gesticulation, more particularly the varied action of their hands
and arms, appeared impassioned and emphatic. We hence inferred that
they were rational beings, and although not perhaps 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 a
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
they possessed wings of 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
circumstance 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 command 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 compact
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 first be laid before the public in Dr. Herschel's own work,
where I have reason to know they are fully and faithfully stated,
however incredulously they may be received.-- * * * * * The three
families then almost simultaneously spread their wings, and were lost
in the dark confines of the canvass before we had time to breathe from
our paralyzing astonishment. We scientifically denominated them the
Vespertilio-homo, or man-bat; and they are doubtless innocent and happy
creatures, notwithstanding that some of their amusements would but ill
comport with our terrestrial notions of decorum. The valley itself we
called the Ruby Colosseum, in compliment to its stupendous southern
boundary, the six mile sweep of precipices two thousand feet high.
And the night, or rather morning, being far advanced, we postponed
our tour to Petavius (No. 20), until another opportunity." We have,
of course, faithfully obeyed Dr. Grant's private injunction to omit
those highly curious passages in his correspondence which he wished
us to suppress, although we do not perceive the force of the reason
assigned for it. It is true, the omitted paragraphs contain facts which
would be wholly incredible to readers who do not carefully examine the
principles and capacity of the instrument with which these marvellous
discoveries have been made; but so will nearly all of those which he
has kindly permitted us to publish; and it was for this reason that
we considered the explicit description which we have given of the
telescope so important a preliminary. From these, however, and other
prohibited passages, which will be published by Dr. Herschel, with the
certificates of the civil and military authorities of the colony, and
of several Episcopal, Wesleyan, and other ministers, who, in the month
of March last, were permitted, under 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 volumes
will be at once the most sublime in science, and the most intense in
general interest, that ever issued from the press.

The night of the 14th displayed the moon in her mean libration, or
full; but the somewhat humid state of the atmosphere being for several
hours less favorable to a minute inspection than to a general survey
of her surface, they were chiefly devoted to the latter purpose. But
shortly after midnight the last veil of mist was dissipated, and
the sky being as lucid as on the former evenings, the attention of
the astronomers was arrested by the remarkable outlines of the spot
marked Tycho, No. 18, in Blunt's lunar chart; and in this region they
added treasures to human knowledge which angels might well desire to
win. Many parts of the following extract will remain forever in the
chronicles of time:--

"The surface of the moon, when viewed in her mean libration, even with
telescopes of very limited power, exhibits three oceans of vast breadth
and circumference, independently of seven large collections of water,
which may be denominated seas. Of inferior waters, discoverable by the
higher classes of instruments, and usually called lakes, the number
is so great that no attempt has yet been made to count them. Indeed,
such a task would be almost equal to that of enumerating the annular
mountains which are found upon every part of her surface, whether
composed of land or water. The largest of the three oceans occupies a
considerable portion of the hemisphere between the line of her northern
axis and that of her eastern equator, and even extends many degrees
south of the latter. Throughout its eastern boundary, it so closely
approaches that of the lunar sphere, as to leave in many places
merely a fringe of illuminated mountains, which are here, therefore,
strongly contra-distinguished from the dark and shadowy aspect of the
great deep. But peninsulas, promontories, capes, and islands, and a
thousand other terrestrial figures, for which we can find no names in
the poverty of _our_ geographical nomenclature, are found expanding,
sallying forth, or glowing in insular independence, through all the
'billowy boundlessness' of this magnificent ocean. One of the most
remarkable of these is a promontory, without a name, I believe, in
the lunar charts, which starts from an island district denominated
Copernicus by the old astronomers, and abounding, as we eventually
discovered, with great natural curiosities. This promontory is indeed
most singular. Its northern extremity is shaped much like an imperial
crown, having a swelling bow, divided and tied down in its centre by a
band of hills which is united with its forehead band or base. The two
open spaces formed by this division are two lakes, each eighty miles
wide; and at the foot of these, divided from them by the band of hills
last mentioned, is another lake, larger than the two put together, and
nearly perfectly square. This one is followed, after another hilly
division, by a lake of an irregular form; and this one yet again, by
two narrow ones, divided longitudinally, which are attenuated northward
to the main land. Thus this skeleton promontory of mountain ridges runs
396 miles into the ocean, with six capacious lakes, enclosed within
its stony ribs. Blunt's excellent lunar chart gives this great work
of nature with wonderful fidelity, and I think you might accompany
my description with an engraving from it, much to your reader's
satisfaction. (See plate 4.)

"Next to this, the most remarkable formation in this ocean is a
strikingly brilliant annular mountain of immense altitude and
circumference, standing 330 miles E.S.E., commonly known as Aristarchus
(No. 12), and marked in the chart as a large mountain, with a great
cavity in its centre. That cavity is now, as it was probably wont to be
in ancient ages, a volcanic crater, awfully rivalling our Mounts Etna
and Vesuvius in the most terrible epochs of their reign. Unfavorable as
the state of the atmosphere was to close examination, we could easily
mark its illumination of the water over a circuit of sixty miles. If
we had before retained any doubt of the power of lunar volcanoes to
throw fragments of their craters so far beyond the moon's attraction
that they would necessarily gravitate to this earth, and thus account
for the multitude of massive aerolites which have fallen and been found
upon our surface, the view which we had of Aristarchus would have set
our scepticism forever at rest. This mountain, however, though standing
300 miles in the ocean, is not absolutely insular, for it is connected
with the main land by four chains of mountains, which branch from it as
a common centre.

"The next great ocean is situated on the western side of the meridian
line, divided nearly in the midst by the line of the equator, and
is about 900 miles in north and south extent. It is marked C in the
catalogue, and was fancifully called the Mare Tranquillitatis. It is
rather two large seas than one ocean, for it is narrowed just under the
equator by a strait not more than 100 miles wide. Only three annular
islands of a large size, and quite detached from its shores, are to be
found within it; though several sublime volcanoes exist on its northern
boundary; one of the most stupendous of which is within 120 miles of
the Mare Nectaris before mentioned. Immediately contiguous to this
second great ocean, and separated from it only by a concatenation of
dislocated continents and islands, is the third, marked D, and known
as the Mare Serenitatis. It is nearly square, being about 330 miles
in length and width. But it has one most extraordinary peculiarity,
which is a perfectly straight ridge of hills, certainly not more than
five miles wide, which starts in a direct line from its southern to
its northern shore, dividing it exactly in the midst. This singular
ridge is perfectly _sui generis_, being altogether unlike any mountain
chain either on this earth or on the moon itself. It is so very keen,
that its great concentration of the solar light renders it visible to
small telescopes; but its character is so strikingly peculiar, that
we could not resist the temptation to depart from our predetermined
adherence to a general survey, and examine it particularly. Our lens G
_x_ brought it within the small distance of 800 yards, and its whole
width of four or five miles snugly within that of our canvass. Nothing
that we had hitherto seen more highly excited our astonishment. Believe
it or believe it not, it was one entire crystallization!--its edge,
throughout its whole length of 340 miles, is an acute angle of solid
quartz crystal, brilliant as a piece of Derbyshire spar just brought
from a mine, and containing scarcely a fracture or a chasm from end to
end! What a prodigious influence must our thirteen times larger globe
have exercised upon this satellite, when an embryo in the womb of time,
the passive subject of chemical affinity! We found that wonder and
astonishment, as excited by objects in this distant world, were but
modes and attributes of ignorance, which should give place to elevated
expectations, and to reverential confidence in the illimitable power of
the Creator.

"The dark expanse of waters to the south of the first great ocean
has often been considered a fourth; but we found it to be merely a
sea of the first class, entirely surrounded by land, and much more
encumbered with promontories and islands than it has been exhibited
in any lunar chart. One of its promontories runs from the vicinity
of Pitatus (No. 19), in a slightly curved and very narrow line, to
Bullialdus (No. 22), which is merely a circular head to it, 264 miles
from its starting place. This is another mountainous ring, a marine
volcano, nearly burnt out, and slumbering upon its cinders. But
Pitatus, standing upon a bold cape of the southern shore, is apparently
exulting in the might and majesty of its fires. The atmosphere being
now quite free from vapor, we introduced the magnifiers to examine
a large bright circle of hills which sweep close beside the western
abutments of this flaming mountain. The hills were either of snow-white
marble or semi-transparent crystal, we could not distinguish which,
and they bounded another of those lovely green valleys, which,
however monotonous in my descriptions, are of paradisaical beauty and
fertility, and like primitive Eden in the bliss of their inhabitants.
Dr. Herschel here again predicated another of his sagacious theories.
He said the proximity of the flaming mountain, Bullialdus, must be so
great a local convenience to dwellers in this valley during the long
periodical absence of solar light, as to render it a place of populous
resort for the inhabitants of all the adjacent regions, more especially
as its bulwark of hills afforded an infallible security against any
volcanic eruption that could occur. We therefore applied our full power
to explore it, and rich indeed was our reward.

"The very first object in this valley that appeared upon our canvass
was a magnificent work of art. It was a temple--a fane of devotion, or
of science, which, when consecrated to the Creator, _is_ devotion of
the loftiest order; for it exhibits his attributes purely free from
the masquerade, attire, and blasphemous caricature of controversial
creeds, and has the seal and signature of his own hand to sanction
its aspirations. It was an equitriangular temple, built of polished
sapphire, or of some resplendent blue stone, which, like it displayed
a myriad points of golden light twinkling and scintillating in the
sunbeams. Our canvass, though fifty feet in diameter, was too limited
to receive more than a sixth part of it at one view, and the first
part that appeared was near the centre of one of its sides, being
three square columns, six feet in diameter at its base, and gently
tapering to a height of seventy feet. The intercolumniations were each
twelve feet. We instantly reduced our magnitude, so as to embrace the
whole structure in one view, and then indeed it was most beautiful.
The roof was composed of some yellow metal, and divided into three
compartments, which were not triangular planes inclining to the centre,
but subdivided, curbed, and separated, so as to present a mass of
violently agitated flames rising from a common source of conflagration
and terminating in wildly waving points. This design was too manifest,
and too skilfully executed to be mistaken for a single moment. Through
a few openings in these metallic flames we perceived a large sphere of
a darker kind of metal nearly of a clouded copper color, which they
enclosed and seemingly raged around, as if hieroglyphically consuming
it. This was the roof; but upon each of the three corners there was
a small sphere of apparently the same metal as the large centre one,
and these rested upon a kind of cornice, quite new in any order of
architecture with which we are acquainted, but nevertheless exceedingly
graceful and impressive. It was like a half-opened scroll, swelling
off boldly from the roof, and hanging far over the walls in several
convolutions. It was of the same metal as the flames, and on each side
of the building it was open at both ends. The columns, six on each
side, were simply plain shafts, without capitals or pedestals, or any
description of ornament; nor was any perceived in other parts of the
edifice. It was open on each side, and seemed to contain neither seats,
altars, nor offerings; but it was a light and airy structure, nearly a
hundred feet high from its white glistening floor to its glowing roof,
and it stood upon a round green eminence on the eastern side of the
valley. We afterwards, however, discovered two others, which were in
every respect fac-similes of this one; but in neither did we perceive
any visitants besides flocks of wild doves which alighted upon 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 by 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 ultimately solving not
only these but a thousand other questions which present themselves
respecting the objects in this planet; for not the millionth part of
her surface has yet been explored, and we have been more desirous of
collecting the greatest possible number of new facts, than of indulging
in speculative theories, however seductive to the imagination.

"But we had not far to seek for inhabitants of this 'Vale of the
Triads.' Immediately on the outer border of the wood which surrounded,
at the distance of half a mile, the eminence on which the first of
these temples stood, we saw several detached assemblies of beings
whom we instantly recognized to be of the same species as our winged
friends of the Ruby Colosseum near the lake Langrenus. Having adjusted
the instrument for a minute examination, we found that nearly all the
individuals in these groups were of a larger stature than the former
specimens, less dark in color, and in _every respect_ an improved
variety of the race. They were chiefly engaged in eating a large yellow
fruit like a gourd, sections of which they divided with their fingers,
and ate with rather uncouth voracity, throwing away the rind. A smaller
red fruit, shaped like a cucumber, which we had often seen pendant from
trees having a broad dark leaf, was also lying in heaps in the centre
of several of the festive groups; but the only use they appeared to
make of it was sucking its juice, after rolling it between the palms of
their hands and nibbling off an end. They seemed eminently happy, and
even polite, for we saw, in many instances, individuals sitting nearest
these piles of fruit, select the largest and brightest specimens,
and throw them archwise across the circle to some opposite friend or
associate who had extracted the nutriment from those scattered around
him, and which were frequently not a few. While thus engaged in their
rural banquets, or in social converse, they were always seated with
their knees flat upon the turf, and their feet brought evenly together
in the form of a triangle. And for some mysterious reason or other
this figure seemed to be an especial favorite among them; for we found
that every group or social circle arranged itself in this shape before
it dispersed, which was generally done at the signal of an individual
who stepped into the centre and brought his hands over his head in an
acute angle. At this signal each member of the company extended his
arms forward so as to form an acute horizontal angle with the extremity
of the fingers. But this was not the only proof we had that they were
creatures of order and subordination. * * * * 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. * * * * But although evidently the
highest order of animals in this rich valley, they were not its only
occupants. Most of the other animals which we had discovered elsewhere,
in very distant regions, were collected here; and also at least eight
or nine new species of quadrupeds. The most attractive of these was
a tall white stag with lofty spreading antlers, black as ebony. We
several times saw this elegant creature trot up to the seated parties
of the semi-human beings I have described, and browse the herbage
close beside them, without the least manifestation of fear on its part
or notice on theirs. The universal state of amity among all classes
of lunar creatures, and the apparent absence of every carnivorous
or ferocious species, gave us the most refined pleasure, and doubly
endeared to us this lovely nocturnal companion of our larger, but less
favored world. Ever again when I 'eye the blue vault and bless the
_useful_ light,' shall I recall the scenes of beauty, grandeur, and
felicity, I have beheld upon her surface, not 'as _through_ a glass
darkly, but face to face;' and never shall I think of that line of our
thrice noble poet,


                    ----'Meek Diana's crest
    Sails through the azure air, an island of the blest,'


without exulting in my knowledge of its truth."

With the careful inspection of this instructive valley, and a
scientific classification of its animal, vegetable, and mineral
productions, the astronomers closed their labors for the night;
labors rather mental than physical, and oppressive, from the extreme
excitement which they naturally induced. A singular circumstance
occurred the next day, which threw the telescope quite out of use for
nearly a week, by which time the moon could be no longer observed
that month. The great lens, which was usually lowered during the day,
and placed horizontally, had, it is true, been lowered as usual,
but had been inconsiderately left in a perpendicular position.
Accordingly, shortly after sunrise the next morning, Dr. Herschel and
his assistants, Dr. Grant and Messrs. Drummond and Home, who slept in
a bungalow erected a short distance from the observatory circle, were
awakened by the loud shouts of some Dutch farmers and domesticated
Hottentots (who were passing with their oxen to agricultural labor),
that the "big house" was on fire! Dr. Herschel leaped out of bed from
his brief slumbers, and, sure enough, saw his observatory enveloped in
a cloud of smoke.

Luckily it had been thickly covered, within and without, with a coat
of Roman plaster, or it would inevitably have been destroyed with
all its invaluable contents; but, as it was, a hole fifteen feet
in circumference had been burnt completely through the "reflecting
chamber," which was attached to the side of the observatory nearest
the lens, through the canvass field on which had been exhibited so many
wonders that will ever live in the history of mankind, and through
the outer wall. So fierce was the concentration of the solar rays
through the gigantic lens, that a clump of trees standing in a line
with them was set on fire, and the plaster of the observatory walls,
all round the orifice, was vitrified to blue glass. The lens being
almost immediately turned, and a brook of water being within a few
hundred yards, the fire was soon extinguished, but the damage already
done was not inconsiderable. The microscope lenses had fortunately
been removed for the purpose of being cleaned, but several of the
metallic reflectors were so fused as to be rendered useless. Masons and
carpenters were procured from Cape Town with all possible dispatch, and
in about a week the whole apparatus was again prepared for operation.

The moon being now invisible Dr. Herschel directed his inquiries to the
primary planets of the system, and first to the planet Saturn. We need
not say that this remarkable globe has for many ages been an object
of the most ardent astronomical curiosity. The stupendous phenomenon
of its double ring having baffled the scrutiny and conjecture of many
generations of astronomers, was finally abandoned as inexplicable. It
is well known that this planet is stationed in the system 900 millions
of miles distant from the sun, and that having the immense diameter
of 79,000 miles, it is more than nine hundred times larger than the
earth. Its annual motion round the sun is not accomplished in less than
twenty-nine and a half of our years, whilst its diurnal rotation upon
its axis is accomplished in 10h. 16m., or considerably less than half
a terrestrial day. It has not less than seven moons, the sixth and the
seventh of which were discovered by the elder Herschel in 1789. It is
thwarted by mysterious belts or bands of a yellowish tinge, and is
surrounded by a double ring--the outer one of which is 204,000 miles
in diameter. The outside diameter of the inner ring is 184,000 miles,
and the breadth of the outer one being 7,200 miles, the space between
them is 28,000 miles. The breadth of the inner ring is much greater
than that of the other, being 20,000 miles; and its distance from
the body of Saturn is more than 30,000. These rings are opaque, but
so thin that their edge has not until now been discovered. Sir John
Herschel's most interesting discovery with regard to this planet is the
demonstrated fact that these two rings are composed of the fragments
of two destroyed worlds, formerly belonging to our solar system, and
which, on being exploded, were gathered around the immense body of
Saturn by the attraction of gravity, and yet kept from falling to its
surface by the great centrifugal force created by its extraordinary
rapidity on its axis. The inner ring was therefore the first of
these destroyed worlds (the former station of which in the system is
demonstrated in the argument which we subjoin), which was accordingly
carried round by the rotary force, and spread forth in the manner we
see. The outer ring is another world exploded in fragments, attracted
by the law of gravity as in the former case, and kept from uniting with
the inner ring by the centrifugal force of the latter. But the latter,
having a slower rotation than the planet, has an inferior centrifugal
force, and accordingly the space between the outer and inner ring is
nearly ten times less than that between the inner ring and the body of
Saturn. Having ascertained the mean density of the rings, as compared
with the density of the planet, Sir John Herschel has been enabled to
effect the following beautiful demonstration. [Which we omit, as too
mathematical for popular comprehension.--_Ed. Sun._]

Dr. Herschel clearly ascertained that these rings are composed of
rocky strata, the skeletons of former globes, lying in a state of wild
and ghastly confusion, but not devoid of mountains and seas. * * * *
The belts across the body of Saturn he has discovered to be the smoke
of a number of immense volcanoes, carried in these straight lines by
the extreme velocity of the rotary motion. * * * * [And these also
he has ascertained to be the belt of Jupiter.--But the portion of
the work which is devoted to this subject, and to the other planets,
as also that which describes the astronomer's discoveries among the
stars, is comparatively uninteresting to general readers, however
highly it might interest others of scientific taste and mathematical
acquirements.--_Ed. Sun._]

* * * * "It was not until the new moon of the month of March, that the
weather proved favorable to any continued series of lunar observations;
and Dr. Herschel had been too enthusiastically absorbed in
demonstrating his brilliant discoveries in the southern constellations,
and in constructing tables and catalogues of his new stars, to avail
himself of the few clear nights which intervened.

"On one of these, however, Mr. Drummond, myself, and Mr. Holmes, made
those discoveries near the Bay of Rainbows, to which I have somewhere
briefly alluded. The bay thus fancifully denominated is a part of
the northern boundary of the first great ocean which I have lately
described, and is marked in the chart with the letter O. The tract
of country which we explored on this occasion is numbered 6, 5, 8,
7, in the catalogue, and the chief mountains to which these numbers
are attached are severally named Atlas, Hercules, Heraclides Verus,
and Heraclides Falsus. Still farther to the north of these is the
island circle called Pythagoras, and numbered 1; and yet nearer the
meridian line is the mountainous district marked R, and called the
Land of Drought, and Q, the Land of Hoar Frost; and certainly the name
of the latter, however theoretically bestowed, was not altogether
inapplicable, for the tops of its very lofty mountains were evidently
covered with snow, though the valleys surrounding them were teeming
with the luxuriant fertility of midsummer. But the region which we
first particularly inspected was that of Heraclides Falsus (No. 7),
in which we found several new specimens of animals, all of which were
horned and of a white or grey color; and the remains of three ancient
triangular temples which had long been in ruins. We thence traversed
the country southeastward, until we arrived at Atlas (No. 6), and it
was in one of the noble valleys at the foot of this mountain that we
found the very superior species of the Vespertilio-homo. In stature
they did not exceed those last described, but they were of infinitely
greater personal beauty, and appeared in our eyes scarcely less lovely
than the general representations of angels by the more imaginative
schools of painters. Their social economy seemed to be regulated by
laws or ceremonies exactly like those prevailing in the Vale of the
Triads, but their works of art were more numerous, and displayed a
proficiency of skill quite incredible to all except actual observers. I
shall, therefore, let the first detailed account of them appear in Dr.
Herschel's authenticated natural history of this planet."

[This concludes the Supplement, with the exception of forty pages
of illustrative and mathematical notes, which would greatly enhance
the size and price of this work, without commensurably adding to its
general interest.--_Ed. Sun._]



APPENDIX.

THE MOON AS KNOWN AT THE PRESENT TIME.


    "Ye 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."

    VIRGIL.


The picture on the title-page is probably the best and minutest view
of the moon, that has ever been laid before the public. Most of our
readers are aware that the mountains and hollows of the moon have
been accurately and thoroughly mapped by astronomers, and baptized
by appropriate names. For the benefit of meritorious students of
astronomical geography, we subjoin the names of all those which
have been christened. At the present season it will amply repay the
possessor of a small telescope 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
meetings. We are not heathens--far from it: but who among us has not
at some time or other paid homage to the Queen of Night[1], 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
attraction of the sun and the earth. This is the unromantic version of
the naked fact.

There was a time when the earth was an uncomfortable semi-incandescent
mass, in the act of cooling off for practical purposes. The atmosphere
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
which would have towered above the tallest trees of our forests. But
in proportion to the rapidity of their growth was the brevity of
their life; for these were the days of earthquakes and terrestrial
convulsions. Probably no day elapsed without some earthquake or
volcanic eruption.

The light of day was dull and obscured. Masses of opaque matter floated
through the atmosphere as thickly as dust specks float through a ray
of sunlight in a darkened room.[3] The hot air, thick and dull, hung a
listless mist 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 rule 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
incandescent 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 peculiar 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 scoriæ
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 boiling 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 incandescent and inchoate planet--if so daring a figure may be
ventured--felt the necessity of unusually strenuous measures. It
gathered all its fiery energies, and mustered all its fearful strength.
The effect was universal, not local. With such bodies distances of
25,000 miles must be trifling, and the earth's meridian--a paltry 8000
miles--not worth mentioning. One can imagine the purpose and effort
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
surface 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
instant 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 offshoot 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 Atlantic and Pacific, the Northern and the Southern
oceans, leaving here and there tracts of cool, dry land for man to
inhabit at the word of his Creator. Nor did the office of the moon stop
here. While it was upheld 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 vast 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
prosperity. 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. Wherever
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
volcanoes, most of which, however, perhaps from a conviction of the
uselessness 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 hundred miles or so wide, with precipitous
sides; Mitchell has vividly described 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 bottom would almost escape the eye, were
there an intervening atmosphere--a great, monstrous cave, with no
vegetation either on the borders or on the top, or on the sides or on
the bottom; no life of any kind, not even, the least sound, to break
the endless monotony of silence--everywhere dull, warm scoriæ, 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 office and purpose
it is to thank and bless Him for their existence. Moons may be an
exception 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 plainly as a distant shore on our own planet. But visits thither
must ever remain as impossible as they are at present. The story of
Hans Pfall will 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 us; that is, its diameter is
about 3-6/10 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 Elémentaire_, 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 29½ days: though the rotation of the moon on her axis is
performed in the sidereal month of 27 days 8 hours nearly. Hence the
inhabitant of the moon sees the sun for 14¾ of our days together,
which time is followed by a night of the same duration. Of course the
existence of any animal like man is impossible there, as well on this
account as on that of the want of an atmosphere.

The phases which the earth presents to the moon are similar in
appearance to those which the moon presents to the earth, but in a
different 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
quarter, 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
intelligence, 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 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, controlling, by its solid mass, the primary planets of
our system, and forming, 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 tremendous 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
truer, 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
occupation, 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 corrected this error, and liberated the pious mind from its
embarrassments. The Palæontologist--the student of ancient life--has
demonstrated, by evidence not to be disputed, that the earth had been
inhabited by animals and adorned with plants during immeasurable cycles
of time antecedent 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 successive creations and catastrophes, the earth was
prepared for the residence 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 catastrophes, too, we recognise theirs, and in
our advancing knowledge and progressive civilization, we witness the
development of the universal mind--the march 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.
2. The Caucasus.
3. The Alps.
4. Taurus.
5. Hæmus.
6. The Altai Mountains.
7. The Cordilleras.
8. The Riphæ Mountains.
9. The Carpathians.
10. The Hercynian Mountains.


HOLLOWS, OR VALLEYS.

A. The Crisian Sea.
B. The Sea of Fertility (!!).
C. The Sea of Nectar.
D. The Tranquil Sea.
E. The Serene Sea.
F. The Sea of Dreams.
G. The Sea of Death.
H. The Dreamy Marsh.
I. The Cold Sea.
K. The Sea of Vapors.
L. The Middle Bay.
M. The Sea of Clouds.
N. The Sea of Mist.
O. The Bay of Epidemics.
P. The Stormy Ocean.
Q. The Showery Sea.
R. The Sea of Rainbows.
S. The Sea of Dews.
T. Humboldt's Sea.

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 me 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 me that
beyond and above all that is visible to man, there may lie fields
of creation which sweep immeasurably along, and carry the impress of
the Almighty's hand to the remotest scenes of the universe. The other
suggests 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 his
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._

"HERSCHEL'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
wonders of the age, to direct our attention very severely to-day to
that sceptical class of our contemporaries 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 comprehend 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 believe 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 believes 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 when that 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 practical
operation. Happily, however, those who impudently and ignorantly deny
the great discoveries of Herschel, are chiefly 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
knowledge to the present age that will immortalize his name, and place
it high on the page of science."--_Daily Advertiser._

"DISCOVERIES IN 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 contemporary journal of this city. It appears to carry
intrinsic evidence of being an authentic document."--_Mercantile
Advertiser._

"STUPENDOUS DISCOVERY IN ASTRONOMY.--We have read with unspeakable
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 relations he entered into with one of the
females of the winged tribe."--_N. Y. Evening Post._

"We think we can trace in it marks of transatlantic origin."--_N. Y.
Commercial Advertiser._

"The writer (Dr. Andrew Grant) displays the most extensive and
accurate knowledge of astronomy, and the description of Sir John's
recently improved instruments, the principle on which the inestimable
improvements were founded, the account of the wonderful discoveries
in the moon, &c., are all probable and plausible, and have an air of
intense verisimilitude."--_N. Y. Times._

"GREAT ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES!--By the late arrivals from England
there has been received in this country a supplement to the _Edinburgh
Journal of Science_ containing intelligence of the most astounding
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 '76._

"After all, however, our doubts and incredulity may be a wrong to the
learned astronomer, and the circumstances of this wonderful discovery
may be correct. Let us do him justice, and allow him to tell his story
in his own way."--_N. Y. Sunday News._

"The article is said to be an extract from a supplement to the
_Edinburgh Journal of Science_. It sets forth difficulties encountered
by Sir John, on obtaining his glass castings for his great telescope,
with magnifying 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 interest."--_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 very few of the
public papers express any other opinion. We have named the _Journal of
Commerce_ as an exception, because it not only ignorantly doubted the
authenticity 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
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 mathematical
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 authenticity of
the great discoveries. But several eminent mathematicians have since
called and assured us, that it is the greatest mathematical discovery
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
nothing 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._

FOOTNOTES:

[1]

    "As when the Moon,[2] 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."

    HOMER.

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 mountains, 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 cannot
discover with the telescope any traces of living beings, or any
monuments of their hands. Viewing the earth as we now do, as the
_third_ planet 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?

[2] _As when the moon, &c._ This comparison is inferior to none in
_Homer_. It is the most beautiful 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.

[3] For an account of the singular views which the ancients had
entertained on this subject, see "The Theology of the Phœnicians,"
by _Sanchoniatho_, who flourished about the time of the Trojan war.
Published in a collection of _Ancient Fragments_. New York. 1835.





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