RICHARD ADAMS LOCKE’S MOON HOAX
_A Magnificent Fake Which Deceived Two Continents, Brought to “The
Sun” the Largest Circulation in the World and, in Poe’s Opinion,
Established Penny Papers._
The man whom Day met at the murder trial in White Plains was Richard
Adams Locke, a reporter who was destined to kick up more dust than
perhaps any other man of his profession. As he comes on the stage, we
must let his predecessor, George W. Wisner, pass into the wings.
Wisner was a good man, as a reporter, as a writer of editorial
articles, and as part owner of the paper. His campaign for Abolition
irritated Mr. Day at first, but the young man’s motives were so pure
and his articles so logical that Day recognized the justice of the
cause, even as he realized the foolish methods employed by some of the
Abolitionists. Wisner set the face of the _Sun_ against slavery, and
Day kept it so, but there were minor matters of policy upon which the
partners never agreed, never could agree.
When Wisner’s health became poor, in the summer of 1835, he expressed
a desire to get away from New York. Mr. Day paid him five thousand
dollars for his interest in the paper--a large sum in those days,
considering the fact that Wisner had won his share with no capital
except his pen. Wisner went West and settled at Pontiac, Michigan.
There his health improved, his fortune increased, and he was at one
time a member of the Michigan Legislature.
When Day found that Locke was the best reporter attending the trial of
Matthias the Prophet, he hired him to write a series of articles on the
religious fakir. These, the first “feature stories” that ever appeared
in the _Sun_, were printed on the front page.
A few weeks later, while the Matthias articles were still being sold
on the streets in pamphlet form, Locke went to Day and told him that
his boss, Colonel Webb of the _Courier and Enquirer_, had discharged
him for working for the _Sun_ “on the side.” Wisner was about to leave
the paper, and Day was glad to hire Locke, for he needed an editorial
writer. Twelve dollars a week was the alluring wage, and Locke accepted
it.
Locke was then thirty-five--ten years senior to his employer. Let his
contemporary, Edgar Allan Poe, describe him:
He is about five feet seven inches in height, symmetrically
formed; there is an air of distinction about his whole
person--the _air noble_ of genius. His face is strongly pitted
by the smallpox, and, perhaps from the same cause, there
is a marked obliquity in the eyes; a certain calm, clear
_luminousness_, however, about these latter amply compensates
for the defect, and the forehead is truly beautiful in its
intellectuality. I am acquainted with no person possessing so
fine a forehead as Mr. Locke.
Locke was nine years older than Poe, who at this time had most of his
fame ahead of him. Poe was quick to recognize the quality of Locke’s
writings; indeed, the poet saw, perhaps more clearly than others of
that period, that America was full of good writers--a fact of which
the general public was neglectful. This was Poe’s tribute to Locke’s
literary gift:
His prose style is noticeable for its concision, luminosity,
completeness--each quality in its proper place. He has that
_method_ so generally characteristic of genius proper.
Everything he writes is a model in its peculiar way, serving
just the purposes intended and nothing to spare.
The _Sun’s_ new writer was a collateral descendant of John Locke, the
English philosopher of the seventeenth century. He was born in 1800,
but his birthplace was not New York, as his contemporary biographers
wrote. It was East Brent, Somersetshire, England. His early American
friends concealed this fact when writing of Locke, for they feared that
his English birth (all the wounds of war had not healed) would keep him
out of some of the literary clubs. He was educated by his mother and
by private tutors until he was nineteen, when he entered Cambridge.
While still a student he contributed to the _Bee_, the _Imperial
Magazine_, and other English publications. When he left Cambridge he
had the hardihood to start the London _Republican_, the title of which
describes its purpose. This was a failure, for London declined to warm
to the theories of American democracy, no matter how scholarly their
expression.
Abandoning the _Republican_, young Locke devoted himself to literature
and science. He ran a periodical called the _Cornucopia_ for about six
months, but it was not a financial success, and in 1832, with his wife
and infant daughter, he went to New York. Colonel Webb put him at work
on his paper.
Locke could write almost anything. In Cambridge and in Fleet Street he
had picked up a wonderful store of general information. He could turn
out prose or poetry, politics or pathos, anecdotes or astronomy.
While he lived in London, Locke was a regular reader of the Edinburgh
_New Philosophical Journal_, and he brought some copies of it to
America. One of these, an issue of 1826, contained an article by Dr.
Thomas Dick, of Dundee, a pious man, but inclined to speculate on the
possibilities of the universe. In this article Dr. Dick suggested the
feasibility of communicating with the moon by means of great stone
symbols on the face of the earth. The people of the moon--if there
were any--would fathom the diagrams and reply in a similar way. Dr.
Dick explained afterward that he wrote this piece with the idea of
satirizing a certain coterie of eccentric German astronomers.
Now it happened that Sir John Frederick William Herschel, the greatest
astronomer of his time, and the son of the celebrated astronomer
Sir William Herschel, went to South Africa in January, 1834, and
established an observatory at Feldhausen, near Cape Town, with the
intention of completing his survey of the sidereal heavens by examining
the southern skies as he had swept the northern, thus to make the first
telescopic survey of the whole surface of the visible heavens.
Locke knew about Sir John and his mission. The Matthias case had blown
over, the big fire in Fulton Street was almost forgotten, and things
were a bit dull on the island of Manhattan. The newspapers were in a
state of armed truce. As Locke and his fellow journalists gathered at
the American Hotel bar for their after-dinner brandy, it is probable
that there was nothing, not even the great sloth recently arrived at
the American Museum, to excite a good argument.
Locke needed money, for his salary of twelve dollars a week could ill
support the fine gentleman that he was; so he laid a plan before Mr.
Day. It was a plot as well as a plan, and the first angle of the plot
appeared on the second page of the _Sun_ on August 21, 1835:
CELESTIAL DISCOVERIES--The Edinburgh _Courant_ says--“We
have just learnt from an eminent publisher in this city that
Sir John Herschel, at the Cape of Good Hope, has made some
astronomical discoveries of the most wonderful description, by
means of an immense telescope of an entirely new principle.”
Nothing further appeared until Tuesday, August 25, when three columns
of the _Sun’s_ first page took the newspaper and scientific worlds by
the ears. Those were not the days of big type. The _Sun’s_ heading read:
GREAT ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES.
LATELY MADE
BY SIR JOHN HERSCHEL, LL.D., F.R.S., &c.
At the Cape of Good Hope.
[_From Supplement to the Edinburgh Journal of Science._]
It may as well be said here that although there had been an Edinburgh
_Journal of Science_, it ceased to exist several years before 1835. The
periodical to which Dr. Dick, of Dundee, contributed his moon theories
was, in a way, the successor to the _Journal of Science_, but it was
called the _New Philosophical Journal_. The likeness of names was not
great, but enough to cause some confusion. It is also noteworthy that
the sly Locke credited to a supplement, rather than to the _Journal of
Science_ itself, the revelations which he that day began to pour before
the eyes of _Sun_ readers. Thus he started:
In this unusual addition to our _Journal_ we have the happiness
of making known to the British public, and thence to the whole
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 proud
distinction through all future time. It has been poetically
said that the stars of heaven are the hereditary regalia of man
as the intellectual sovereign of the animal creation. He may
now fold the zodiac around him with a loftier consciousness of
his mental supremacy.
[Illustration:
RICHARD ADAMS LOCKE, AUTHOR OF THE MOON HOAX
From an Engraving in the Possession of His Granddaughter, Mrs.
F. Winthrop White of New Brighton, S. I.
]
After solemnly dwelling on the awe which mortal man must feel upon
peering into the secrets of the sky, the article declared that Sir John
“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.” It continued:
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. 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.
At the end of a half-column of glorification, the writer got down to
brass tacks:
To render our enthusiasm intelligible, we will state at
once that by means of a telescope, of vast dimensions and
an entirely new principle, the younger Herschel, at his
observatory in the southern hemisphere, has already made the
most extraordinary discoveries in every planet of our solar
system; has discovered planets in other solar systems; has
obtained a distinct view of objects in the moon, fully equal to
that which the unaided eye commands of terrestrial objects at
the distance of one hundred yards; has affirmatively settled
the question whether this satellite be inhabited, and by what
orders of beings; has firmly established a new theory of
cometary phenomena; and has solved or corrected nearly every
leading problem of mathematical astronomy.
And where was the _Journal of Science_ getting this mine of
astronomical revelation for its supplement? The mystery is explained at
once:
We are indebted to the devoted friendship of Dr. Andrew
Grant, the pupil of the elder, and for several years past the
inseparable coadjutor of the younger Herschel. The amanuensis
of the latter at the Cape of Good Hope, and the indefatigable
superintendent of his telescope during the whole period of
its construction and operations, Dr. Grant has been able to
supply us with intelligence equal in general interest at
least to that which Dr. Herschel himself has transmitted to
the Royal Society. For 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.
Regarding the illustrations which, according to the implications of
the text, accompanied the supplement, the writer was specific. Most
of them, he stated, were copies of “drawings taken in the observatory
by Herbert Home, Esq., who accompanied the last powerful series of
reflectors from London to the Cape. The engraving of the belts of
Jupiter is a reduced copy of an imperial folio drawing by Dr. Herschel
himself. The segment of the inner ring of Saturn is from a large
drawing by Dr. Grant.”
A history of Sir William Herschel’s work and a description of his
telescopes took up a column of the _Sun_, and on top of this came the
details--as the _Journal_ printed them--of Sir John’s plans to outdo
his father by revolutionary methods and a greater telescope. Sir John,
it appeared, was in conference with Sir David Brewster:
After a few minutes’ silent thought, Sir John diffidently
inquired whether it would not be possible to effect a
_transfusion of artificial light through the focal object of
vision!_ Sir David, somewhat startled at the originality of the
idea, paused a while, and then hesitatingly referred to the
refrangibility of rays and the angle of incidence. Sir John,
grown more confident, adduced the example of the Newtonian
reflector, in which the refrangibility was corrected by the
second speculum and the angle of incidence restored by the
third.
“And,” continued he, “why cannot the illuminated microscope,
say the hydro-oxygen, be applied to render distinct and, if
necessary, even to magnify, the focal object?”
Sir David sprang from his chair in an ecstasy of conviction,
and, leaping half-way to the ceiling, exclaimed:
“Thou art the man!”
Details of the casting of a great lens came next. It was twenty-four
feet in diameter, and weighed nearly fifteen thousand pounds after it
was polished; its estimated magnifying-power was forty-two thousand
times. As he saw it safely started on its way to Africa, Sir John
“expressed confidence in his ultimate ability to study even the
entomology of the moon, in case she contained insects upon her surface.”
Thus ended the first instalment of the story. Where had the _Sun_ got
the _Journal of Science_ supplement? An editorial article answered that
“it was very politely furnished us by a medical gentleman immediately
from Scotland, in consequence of a paragraph which appeared on Friday
last from the Edinburgh _Courant_.” The article added:
The portion which we publish to-day is introductory to
celestial discoveries of higher and more universal interest
than any, in any science yet known to the human race. Now
indeed it may be said that we live in an age of discovery.
It cannot be said that the whole town buzzed with excitement that day.
Perhaps this first instalment was a bit over the heads of most readers;
it was so technical, so foreign. But in Nassau and Ann Streets,
wherever two newspapermen were gathered together, there was buzzing
enough. What was coming next? Why hadn’t they thought to subscribe to
the Edinburgh _Journal of Science_, with its wonderful supplement?
Nearly four columns of the revelations appeared on the following
day--August 26, 1835. This time the reading public came trooping into
camp, for the _Sun’s_ reprint of the _Journal of Science_ supplement
got beyond the stage of preliminaries and predictions, and began to
tell of what was to be seen on the moon. Scientists and newspapermen
appreciated the detailed description of the mammoth telescope and the
work of placing it, but the public, like a child, wanted the moon--and
got it. Let us plunge in at about the point where the public plunged:
The specimen of lunar vegetation, however, which they had
already seen, had decided a question of too exciting an
interest to induce them to retard its exit. It had demonstrated
that the moon has an atmosphere constituted similarly to our
own, and capable of sustaining organized and, therefore, most
probably, animal life.
“The trees,” says Dr. Grant, “for a period of ten minutes were
of one unvaried kind, and unlike any I have seen except the
largest class of yews in the English churchyards, which they in
some respects resemble. These were followed by a level green
plain which, as measured by the painted circle on our canvas
of forty-nine feet, must have been more than half a mile in
breadth.”
The article had explained that, by means of a great reflector, the
lunar views were thrown upon a big canvas screen behind the telescope.
Then appeared as fine a forest of firs, 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
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 Nubicum of Riccoli.
Fairer shores never angel coasted on a tour of pleasure. A
beach of brilliant white sand, girt with wild, castellated
rocks, apparently of green marble, varied at chasms, occurring
every two or three hundred feet, with grotesque blocks of chalk
or gypsum, and feathered and festooned at the summits with the
clustering foliage of unknown trees, moved along the bright
wall of our apartment until we were speechless with admiration.
A column farther on, in a wonderful valley of this wonderful moon, life
at last burst upon the seers:
In the shade of the woods on the southeastern 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
was like that of our _bos grunniens_; but in its semicircular
horns, the hump on its shoulders, the depth of its dewlap,
and the length of its shaggy hair, it closely resembled the
species to which I have compared it.
It had, however, one widely distinctive feature, which we
afterward 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 the 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 rivaled the antelope, and like him it seemed an agile,
sprightly creature, running with great speed and springing from
the green turf with all the unaccountable antics of the young
lamb or kitten.
This beautiful creature afforded us the most exquisite
amusement. The mimicry of its movements upon our white-painted
canvas was as faithful and luminous as that of animals within
a few yards of a 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.
So, at last, the people of earth knew something concrete about the live
things of the moon. Goats with beards were there, and every New Yorker
knew goats, for they fed upon the rocky hills of Harlem. And the moon
had birds, too:
On examining the center of this delightful valley we found
a large, branching river, abounding with lovely islands and
water-birds of numerous kinds. A species of gray pelican
was the most numerous, but black and white cranes, with
unreasonably long legs and bill, were also quite common. We
watched their piscivorous experiments a long time in hopes
of catching sight of a lunar fish; but, although we were not
gratified in this respect, we could easily guess the purpose
with which they plunged their long necks so deeply beneath
the water. Near the upper extremity of one of these islands
we obtained a glimpse of a strange amphibious creature of a
spherical form, which rolled with great velocity across the
pebbly beach, and was lost sight of in the strong current which
set off from this angle of the island.
At this point clouds intervened, and the Herschel party had to call
it a day. But it had been a big day, and nobody who read the _Sun_
wondered that the astronomers tossed off “congratulatory bumpers of
the best ‘East India particular,’ and named this place of wonders the
Valley of the Unicorn.” So ended the _Sun_ story of August 26, but an
editorial paragraph assured the patrons of the paper that on the morrow
there would be a treat even richer.
What did the other papers say? In the language of a later and less
elegant period, most of them ate it up--some eagerly, some grudgingly,
some a bit dubiously, but they ate it, either in crumbs or in hunks.
The _Daily Advertiser_ declared:
No article has appeared for years that will command so general
a perusal and publication. Sir John has added a stock of
knowledge to the present age that will immortalize his name and
place it high on the page of science.
The _Mercantile Advertiser_, knowing that its lofty readers were
unlikely to see the moon revelations in the lowly _Sun_, hastened
to begin reprinting the articles in full, with the remark that the
document appeared to have intrinsic evidence of authenticity.
The _Times_, a daily then only a year old, and destined to live only
eighteen months more--later, of course, the title was used by a
successful daily--said that everything in the _Sun_ story was probable
and plausible, and had an “air of intense verisimilitude.”
The New York _Sunday News_ advised the incredulous to be patient:
Our doubts and incredulity may be a wrong to the learned
astronomer, and the circumstances of this wonderful discovery
may be correct.
The _Courier and Enquirer_ said nothing at all. Like the _Journal
of Commerce_, it hated the _Sun_ for a lucky upstart. Both of these
sixpenny respectables stood silent, with their axes behind their backs.
Their own readers, the Livingstons and the Stuyvesants, got not a
line about the moon from the blanket sheets, but they sent down into
the kitchen and borrowed the _Sun_ from the domestics, on the shallow
pretext of wishing to discover whether their employees were reading a
moral newspaper--as indeed they were.
The _Herald_, then about four months old, said not a word about the
moon story. In fact, that was a period in which it said nothing at all
about any subject, for the fire of that summer had unfortunately wiped
out its plant. On the very days when the moon stories appeared, Mr.
Bennett stood cracking his knuckles in front of his new establishment,
the basement of 202 Broadway, trying to hurry the men who were
installing a double-cylinder press. Being a wise person, he advertised
his progress in the _Sun_. It may have vexed him to see the circulation
of the _Sun_--which he had imitated in character and price--bound
higher and higher as he stood helpless.
The third instalment of the literary treasure so obligingly imported by
the “medical gentleman immediately from Scotland” introduced to _Sun_
readers new and important regions of the moon--the Vagabond Mountains,
the Lake of Death, craters of extinct volcanoes twenty-eight hundred
feet high, and twelve luxuriant forests divided by open plains “in
which waved an ocean of verdure, and which were probably prairies like
those of North America.” The details were satisfying:
Dr. Herschel has classified not less than thirty-eight species
of forest trees and nearly twice this number of plants, found
in this tract alone, which are widely different to those found
in more equatorial latitudes. Of animals he classified nine
species of mammalia and five of oviparia. Among the former is
a small kind of reindeer, the elk, the moose, the horned bear,
and the biped beaver.
The last resembles the beaver of the earth in every other
respect than its destitution of a tail and its invariable
habit of walking upon only two feet. It carries its young in
its arms, like a human being, and walks with an easy, gliding
motion. Its huts are constructed better and higher than those
of many tribes of human savages, and from the appearance of
smoke in nearly all of them there is no doubt of its being
acquainted with the use of fire.
The largest lake described was two hundred and sixty-six miles long and
one hundred and ninety-three wide, shaped like the Bay of Bengal, and
studded with volcanic islands. One island in a large bay was pinnacled
with quartz crystals as brilliant as fire. Near by roamed zebras three
feet high. Golden and blue pheasants strutted about. The beach was
covered with shell-fish. Dr. Grant did not say whether the fire-making
beavers ever held a clambake there.
The _Sun_ of Friday, August 28, 1835, was a notable issue. Not yet two
years old, Mr. Day’s newspaper had the satisfaction of announcing that
it had achieved the largest circulation of any daily in the world.
It had, it said, 15,440 regular subscribers in New York and 700 in
Brooklyn, and it sold 2,000 in the streets and 1,220 out of town--a
grand total of 19,360 copies, as against the 17,000 circulation of the
London _Times_. The double-cylinder Napier press in the building at
Nassau and Spruce Streets--the corner where the _Tribune_ is to-day,
and to which the _Sun_ had moved on August 3--had to run ten hours
a day to satisfy the public demand. People waited with more or less
patience until three o’clock in the afternoon to read about the moon.
That very issue contained the most sensational instalment of all the
moon series, for through that mystic chain which included Dr. Grant,
the supplement of the Edinburgh _Journal of Science_, the “medical
gentleman immediately from Scotland,” and the _Sun_, public curiosity
as to the presence of human creatures on the orb of night was satisfied
at last. The astronomers were looking upon the cliffs and crags of a
new part of the moon:
But whilst gazing upon them in a perspective of about half
a mile we were thrilled with astonishment to perceive four
successive flocks of large winged creatures, wholly unlike any
kind of birds, descend with a slow, even motion from the cliffs
on the western side and alight upon the plain. They were first
noticed by Dr. Herschel, who exclaimed:
“Now gentlemen, my theories against your proofs, which you have
often found a pretty even bet, we have here something worth
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 toward a small
wood near the base of the eastern precipices. Certainly they
were like human beings, for their wings had now disappeared,
and their attitude in walking was both erect and dignified.
Having observed them at this distance for some minutes, we
introduced lens H._z_., which brought them to the apparent
proximity of 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 canvas; 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-utan, being more open
and intelligent in its expression, and having a much greater
expanse 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-utan; so much so that, but for their long
wings, Lieutenant 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
semi-circles 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 canvas, and whenever we afterward saw
them, these creatures were evidently engaged in conversation;
their gesticulation, more particularly the varied action of the
hands and arms, appeared impassioned and emphatic. We hence
inferred that they were rational beings, and, although not
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
the large lake, and having on its eastern margin a small wood.
Some of these creatures had crossed this water and were lying
like spread eagles on the skirts of the wood.
We could then perceive that their wings possessed 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 be first laid before the public in Dr.
Herschel’s own work, where I have reason to know that they are
fully and faithfully stated, however incredulously they may be
received....
The three families then almost simultaneously spread their
wings, and were lost in the dark confines of the canvas before
we had time to breathe from our paralyzing astonishment. We
scientifically denominated them the _vespertilio-homo_, or
man-bat; and they are doubtless innocent and happy creatures,
notwithstanding some of their amusements would but ill comport
with our terrestrial notions of decorum.
So ended the account, in Dr. Grant’s words, of that fateful day. The
editor of the supplement, perhaps a cousin of the “medical gentleman
immediately arrived from Scotland,” added that although he had of
course faithfully obeyed Dr. Grant’s injunction to omit “these highly
curious passages,” he did not “clearly perceive the force of the
reasons assigned for it,” and he added:
From these, however, and other prohibited passages, which will
be published by Dr. 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 the stipulation of temporary
secrecy to visit the observatory and become eye-witnesses
of the wonders which they were requested to attest, we are
confident his forthcoming volumes will be at once the most
sublime in science and the most intense in general interest
that ever issued from the press.
New York now stopped its discussion of human slavery, the high cost of
living--apples cost as much as four cents apiece in Wall Street--and
other familiar topics, and devoted its talking hours to the man-bats
of the moon. The _Sun_ was stormed by people who wanted back numbers
of the stories, and flooded with demands by mail. As the text of the
_Journal of Science_ article indicated that the original narrative had
been illustrated, there was a cry for pictures.
Mr. Day was busy with the paper and its overworked press, but he
gave Mr. Locke a free hand, and that scholar took to Norris & Baker,
lithographers, in the Union Building, Wall Street, the drawings which
had been intrusted to his care by the “medical gentleman immediately
from Scotland.” Mr. Baker, described by the _Sun_ as quite the most
talented lithographic artist of the city, worked day and night on his
delightful task, that the illustrations might be ready when the _Sun’s_
press should have turned out, in the hours when it was not printing
_Suns_, a pamphlet containing the astronomical discoveries.
“Dr. Herschel’s great work,” said the _Sun_, “is preparing for
publication at ten guineas sterling, or fifty dollars; and we shall
give all the popular substance of it for twelve or thirteen cents.”
The pamphlets were to be sold two for a quarter; the lithographs at
twenty-five cents for the set.
Most newspapers that mentioned the discovery of human creatures on
the moon were credulous. The _Evening Post_, edited by William Cullen
Bryant and Fitz-Greene Halleck--“the chanting cherubs of the _Post_,”
as Colonel Webb was wont to call them--only skirted the edge of doubt:
That there should be winged people in the moon does not
strike us as more wonderful than the existence of such a
race of beings on earth; and that there does or did exist
such a race rests on the evidence of that most veracious of
voyagers, _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 those more
delicate and engaging traits which the author was enabled to
discover by reason of the conjugal relations he entered into
with one of the females of the winged tribe.
_Peter Wilkins_ was the hero of Robert Paltock’s imaginative book, “The
Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins, a Cornish Man,” published in
London in 1750. Paltock’s winged people, said Southey, were “the most
beautiful creatures of imagination that were ever devised.”
The instalment of the discoveries printed on August 29 revealed to the
reader the great Temple of the Moon, built of polished sapphire, with a
roof of some yellow metal, supported by columns seventy feet high and
six feet in diameter:
It was open on all sides, and seemed to 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
the glowing roof, and it stood upon a round, green eminence
on the eastern side of the valley. We afterward, however,
discovered two others which were in every respect facsimiles of
this one; but in neither did we perceive any visitants except
flocks of wild doves, which alighted on its lustrous pinnacles.
Had the devotees of these temples gone the way of all living,
or were the latter merely historical monuments? What did the
ingenious builders mean by the globe surrounded with flames?
Did they, by this, record any past calamity of _their_ world,
or predict any future one of _ours_? I by no means despair
of ultimately solving not only these, but a thousand other
questions which present themselves respecting the object 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.
The conclusion of this astounding narrative, which totalled eleven
thousand words, was printed on August 31. In the valley of the temple a
new set of man-bats was found:
We had no opportunity of seeing them actually engaged in any
work of industry or art; and, so far as we could judge, they
spent their happy hours in collecting various fruits in the
woods, in eating, flying, bathing, and loitering about upon the
summits of precipices.
One night, when the astronomers finished work, they neglectfully left
the telescope facing the eastern horizon. The risen sun burned a hole
fifteen feet in circumference through the reflecting chamber, and
ruined part of the observatory. When the damage was repaired, the moon
was invisible, and so Dr. Herschel turned his attention to Saturn.
Most of the discoveries here were technical, as the _Sun_ assured its
readers, and the narrative came to an end. An editorial note added:
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. In order that our readers may
judge for themselves whether we have withheld from them any
matter of general comprehension and interest, we insert one of
the notes from those pages of the supplement which we thought
it useless to reprint; and it may be considered a fair sample
of the remainder. For ourselves, we know nothing of mathematics
beyond counting dollars and cents, but to geometricians
the following new method of measuring the height of the
lunar mountains, adopted by Sir John Herschel, may be quite
interesting.
Perhaps the pretended method of measuring lunar mountains was
not interesting to laymen, but it may have been the cause of an
intellectual tumult at Yale. At all events, a deputation from that
college hurried to the steamboat and came to New York to see the
wonderful supplement. The collegians saw Mr. Day, and voiced their
desire.
“Surely,” he replied, “you do not doubt that we have the supplement in
our possession? I suppose the magazine is somewhere up-stairs, but I
consider it almost an insult that you should ask to see it.”
On their way out the Yale men heard, perhaps from the “devil,” that one
Locke was interested in the matter of the moon, that he had handled
the supplement, and that he was to be seen at the foot of the stairs,
smoking his cigar and gazing across City Hall Park. They advanced
upon him, and he, less brusque than Mr. Day, told the scientific
pilgrims that the supplement was in the hands of a printer in William
Street--giving the name and address.
As the Yale men disappeared in the direction of the printery, Locke
started for the same goal, and more rapidly. When the Yalensians
arrived, the printer, primed by Locke, told them that the precious
pamphlet had just been sent to another shop, where certain
proof-reading was to be done. And so they went from post to pillar
until the hour came for their return to New Haven. It would not do to
linger in New York, for Professors Denison Olmsted and Elias Loomis
were that very day getting their first peep at Halley’s comet, about
to make the regular appearance with which it favours the earth every
seventy-six years.
But Yale was not the only part of intellectual New England to be deeply
interested in the moon and its bat-men. The _Gazette_ of Hampshire,
Massachusetts, insisted that Edward Everett, who was then running for
Governor, had these astronomical discoveries in mind when he declared
that “we know not how soon the mind, in its researches into the
labyrinth of nature, would grasp some clue which would lead to a new
universe and change the aspect of the world.”
Harriet Martineau, who was touring America at the time, wrote in
her “Sketches of Western Travel” that the ladies of Springfield,
Massachusetts, subscribed to a fund to send missionaries to the
benighted luminary. When the _Sun_ articles reached Paris, they were at
once translated into illustrated pamphlets, and the caricaturists of
the Paris newspapers drew pictures of the man-bats going through the
streets singing “_Au Clair de la Lune_.” London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow
made haste to issue editions of the work.
Meanwhile, of course, Sir John Herschel was busy with his telescope at
the Cape, all unaware of his expanded fame in the north. Caleb Weeks,
of Jamaica, Long Island, the Adam Forepaugh of his day, was setting out
for South Africa to get a supply of giraffes for his menagerie, and he
had the honour of laying in the great astronomer’s hand a clean copy of
the pamphlet. To say that Sir John was amazed at the _Sun’s_ enterprise
would be putting it mildly. When he had read the story through, he went
to Caleb Weeks and said that he was overcome; that he never could hope
to live up to the fame that had been heaped upon him.
In New York, meanwhile, Richard Adams Locke had spilled the beans.
There was a reporter named Finn, once employed by the _Sun_, but later
a scribe for the _Journal of Commerce_. He and Locke were friends.
One afternoon Gerard Hallock, who was David Hale’s partner in the
proprietorship of the _Journal of Commerce_, called Finn to his office
and told him to get extra copies of the _Sun_ containing the moon
story, as the _Journal_ had decided, in justice to its readers, that it
must reprint it.
Perhaps at the _Sun_ office, perhaps in the tap-room of the Washington
Hotel, Finn met Locke, and they went socially about to public places.
Finn told Locke of the work on which he was engaged, and said that, as
the moon story was already being put into type at the _Journal_ office,
it was likely that it would be printed on the morrow.
“Don’t print it right away,” said Locke. “I wrote it myself.”
The next day the _Journal_, instead of being silently grateful for the
warning, denounced the alleged discoveries as a hoax. Mr. Bennett, who
by this time had the _Herald_ once more in running order, not only
cried “Hoax!” but named Locke as the author.
Probably Locke was glad that the suspense was over. He is said to have
told a friend that he had not intended the story as a hoax, but as
satire.
“It is quite evident,” he said, as he saw the whole country take the
marvellous narrative seriously, “that it is an abortive satire; and I
am the best self-hoaxed man in the whole community.”
But while the _Sun’s_ rivals denounced the hoax, the _Sun_ was not
quick to admit that it had gulled not only its own readers but almost
all the scientific world. Barring the casual conversation between
Locke and Finn, there was no evidence plain enough to convince the
layman that it was a hoax. The _Sun_ fenced lightly and skilfully
with all controverters. On September 16, more than two weeks after
the conclusion of the story, it printed a long editorial article on
the subject of the authenticity of the discoveries, mentioning the
wide-spread interest that had been displayed in them:
Most of those who incredulously regard the whole narrative as
a hoax are generously enthusiastic in panegyrizing not only
what they are pleased to denominate its ingenuity and talent,
but also its useful effect in diverting the public mind, for
a while, from that bitter apple of discord, the abolition of
slavery, which still unhappily threatens to turn the milk of
human kindness into rancorous gall. That the astronomical
discoveries have had this effect is obvious from our exchange
papers. Who knows, therefore, whether these discoveries in
the moon, with the visions of the blissful harmony of her
inhabitants which they have revealed, may not have had the
effect of reproving the discords of a country which might be
happy as a paradise, which has valleys not less lovely than
those of the Ruby Colosseum, of the Unicorn, or of the Triads;
and which has not inferior facilities for social intercourse to
those possessed by the _vespertiliones-homines_, or any other
_homines_ whatever?
Some persons of little faith but great good nature, who
consider the “moon story,” as it is vulgarly called, an adroit
fiction of our own, are quite of the opinion that this was the
amiable moral which the writer had in view. Other readers,
however, construe the whole as an elaborate satire upon the
monstrous fabrications of the political press of the country
and the various genera and species of its party editors. In
the blue goat with the single horn, mentioned as it is in
connection with the royal arms of England, many persons fancy
they perceive the characteristics of a notorious foreigner who
is the supervising editor of one of our largest morning papers.
We confess that this idea of intended satire somewhat shook our
own faith in the genuineness of the extracts from the Edinburgh
_Journal of Science_ with which a gentleman connected with our
office furnished us as “from a medical gentleman immediately
from Scotland.”
Certain correspondents have been urging us to come out and
confess the whole to be a hoax; but this we can by no means do
until we have the testimony of the English or Scotch papers
to corroborate such a declaration. In the mean time let every
reader of the account examine it and enjoy his own opinion.
Many intelligent and scientific persons will believe it true,
and will continue to do so to their lives’ end; whilst the
skepticism of others would not be removed though they were in
Dr. Herschel’s observatory itself.
The New York showmen of that day were keen for novelty, and the moon
story helped them to it. Mr. Hannington, who ran the diorama in the
City Saloon--which was not a barroom, but an amusement house--on
Broadway opposite St. Paul’s Church, put on “The Lunar Discoveries; a
Brilliant Illustration of the Scientific Observation of the Surface of
the Moon, to Which Will Be Added the Reported Lunar Observations of
Sir John Herschel.” Hannington had been showing “The Deluge” and “The
Burning of Moscow,” but the wonders of the moon proved to be far more
attractive to his patrons. The _Sun_ approved of this moral spectacle:
Hannington forever and still years afterward, say we! His
panorama of the lunar discoveries, in connexion with the
beautiful dioramas, are far superior to any other exhibition in
this country.
Not less popular than Hannington’s panorama was an extravaganza put
on by Thomas Hamblin at the Bowery Theatre, and called “Moonshine, or
Lunar Discoveries.” A _Sun_ man went to review it, and had to stand up;
but he was patient enough to stay, and he wrote this about the show:
It is quite evident that Hamblin does not believe a word of the
whole story, or he would never have taken the liberties with
it which he has. The wings of the man-bats and lady-bats, who
are of an orange color and look like angels in the jaundice,
are well contrived for effect; and the dialogue is highly witty
and pungent. Major Jack Downing’s blowing up a whole flock of
winged lunarians with a combustible bundle of Abolition tracts,
after vainly endeavoring to catch a long aim at them with his
rifle, is capital; as are also his puns and jokes upon the
splendid scenery of the Ruby Colosseum. Take it altogether, it
is the most amusing thing that has been on these boards for a
long time.
Thus the moon eclipsed the regular stars of the New York stage. Even
Mrs. Duff, the most pathetic _Isabella_ that ever appeared in “The
Fatal Marriage,” saw her audiences thin out at the Franklin Theatre.
Sol Smith’s drolleries in “The Lying Valet,” at the Park Theatre, could
not rouse the laughter that the burlesque man-bats caused at the Bowery.
All this time there was a disappointed man in Baltimore; disappointed
because the moon stories had caused him to abandon one of the most
ambitious stories he had attempted. This was Edgar Allan Poe, and the
story he dropped was “Hans Pfaall.”
In the spring of 1835 the Harpers issued an edition of Sir John
Herschel’s “Treatise on Astronomy,” and Poe, who read it, was
deeply interested in the chapter on the possibility of future lunar
investigations:
The theme excited my fancy, and I longed to give free rein to
it in depicting my day-dreams about the scenery of the moon; in
short, I longed to write a story embodying these dreams. The
obvious difficulty, of course, was that of accounting for the
narrator’s acquaintance with the satellite; and the equally
obvious mode of surmounting the difficulty was the supposition
of an extraordinary telescope.
Poe spoke of this ambition to John Pendleton Kennedy, of Baltimore,
already the author of “Swallow Barn,” and later to have the honour of
writing, as the result of a jest by Thackeray, the fourth chapter of
the second volume of “The Virginians.” Kennedy assured Poe that the
mechanics of telescope construction were so fixed that it would be
impossible to impart verisimilitude to a tale based on a superefficient
telescope. So Poe resorted to other means of bringing the moon close to
the reader’s eye:
I fell back upon a style half plausible, half bantering, and
resolved to give what interest I could to an actual passage
from the earth to the moon, describing the lunar scenery as if
surveyed and personally examined by the narrator.
Poe wrote the first part of “Hans Pfaall,” and published it in the
_Southern Literary Messenger_, of which he was then editor, at
Richmond, Virginia. Three weeks afterward the first instalment of
Locke’s moon story appeared in the _Sun_. At the moment Poe believed
that his idea had been kidnapped:
No sooner had I seen the paper than I understood the jest,
which not for a moment could I doubt had been suggested by
my own _jeu d’esprit_. Some of the New York journals--the
_Transcript_, among others--saw the matter in the same light,
and published the moon story side by side with “Hans Pfaall,”
thinking that the author of the one had been detected in the
author of the other.
Although the details are, with some exceptions, very
dissimilar, still I maintain that the general features
of the two compositions are nearly identical. Both are
hoaxes--although one is in a tone of mere banter, the other of
down-right earnest; both hoaxes are on one subject, astronomy;
both on the same point of that subject, the moon; both
professed to have derived exclusive information from a foreign
country; and both attempt to give plausibility by minuteness of
scientific detail. Add to all this, that nothing of a similar
nature had even been attempted before these two hoaxes, the one
of which followed immediately upon the heels of the other.
Having stated the case, however, in this form, I am bound to
do Mr. Locke the justice to say that he denies having seen my
article prior to the publication of his own; I am bound to add,
also, that I believe him.
Nor can any unbiassed person who reads, for purpose of comparison, the
“Astronomical Discoveries” and “Hans Pfaall” suspect that Locke based
his hoax on the story of the Rotterdam debtor who blew his creditors
to bits and sailed to the moon in a balloon. Chalk and cheese are much
more alike than these two products of genius.
Poe may have intended to fall back upon “a style half plausible,
half bantering,” as he described it, but there is not the slightest
plausibility about “Hans Pfaall.” It is as near to humour as the great,
dark mind could get. “Mere banter,” as he later described it, is
better. The very episode of the dripping pitcher of water, used to wake
_Hans_ at an altitude where even alcohol would freeze, is enough proof,
if proof at all were necessary, to strip the tale of its last shred
of verisimilitude. No child of twelve would believe in _Hans_, while
Locke’s fictitious “Dr. Grant” deceived nine-tenths--the estimate is
Poe’s--of those who read the narrative of the great doings at the Cape
of Good Hope.
Locke had spoiled a promising tale for Poe--who tore up the second
instalment of “Hans Pfaall” when he “found that he could add very
little to the minute and authentic account of Sir John Herschel”--but
the poet took pleasure, in later years, in picking the _Sun’s_ moon
story to bits.
“That the public were misled, even for an instant,” Poe declared in his
critical essay on Locke’s writings, “merely proves the gross ignorance
which, ten or twelve years ago, was so prevalent on astronomical
topics.”
According to Locke’s own description of the telescope, said Poe,
it could not have brought the moon nearer than five miles; yet Sir
John--Locke’s Sir John--saw flowers and described the eyes of birds.
Locke had an ocean on the moon, although it had been established beyond
question that the visible side of the moon is dry. The most ridiculous
thing about the moon story, said Poe, was that the narrator described
the entire bodies of the man-bats, whereas, if they were seen at all by
an observer on the earth, they would manifestly appear as if walking
heels up and head down, after the fashion of flies on a ceiling.
And yet the hoax, Poe admits, “was, upon the whole, the greatest hit
in the way of sensation--of merely popular sensation--ever made by any
similar fiction either in America or Europe.” Whether Locke intended it
as satire or not--a debatable point--it was a hoax of the first water.
It deceived more persons, and for a longer time, than any other fake
ever written: and, as the _Sun_ pointed out, it hurt nobody--except,
perhaps, the feelings of Dr. Dick, of Dundee--and it took the public
mind away from less agreeable matters. Some of the wounded scientists
roared, but the public, particularly the New York public, took the
exposure of Locke’s literary villainy just as Sir John Herschel
accepted it--with a grin.
As for the inspiration of the moon story, the record is nebulous.
If Poe was really grieved at his first thought that Locke had taken
from him the main imaginative idea--that the moon was inhabited--then
Poe was oversensitive or uninformed, for that idea was at least two
centuries old.
Francis Godwin, an English bishop and author, who was born in 1562, and
who died just two centuries before the _Sun_ was first printed, wrote
“The Man in the Moone, or a Discourse of a Voyage Thither by Domingo
Gonsales, the Speedy Messenger.” This was published in London in 1638,
five years after the author’s death.
In the same year there appeared a book called “The Discovery of a World
in the Moone,” which contained arguments to prove the moon habitable.
It was written by John Wilkins--no relative of the fictitious _Peter_
of Paltock’s story, but a young English clergyman who later became
Bishop of Chester, and who was the first secretary of the Royal
Society. Two years later Wilkins added to his “Discovery of a World” a
“Discourse Concerning the Possibility of a Passage Thither.”
Cyrano de Bergerac, he of the long nose and the passion for poetry and
duelling, later to be immortalized by Rostand, read these products
of two Englishmen’s fancy, and about 1650 he turned out his joyful
“Histoire Comique des Etats et Empires de la Lune.” But Bergerac had
also been influenced by Dante and by Lucian, the latter being the
supposed inspiration of the fanciful narratives of Rabelais and Swift.
Perhaps these writers influenced Godwin and Wilkins also; so the
trail, zigzagged and ramifying, goes back to the second century. It is
hard to indict a man for being inspired, and in the case of the moon
story there is no evidence of plagiarism. If “Hans Pfaall” were to be
compared with Locke’s story for hoaxing qualities, it would only suffer
by the comparison. It would appear as the youthful product of a tyro,
as against the cunning work of an artist of almost devilish ingenuity.
Is there any doubt that the moon hoax was the sole work of Richard
Adams Locke? So far as concerns the record of the _Sun_, the comments
of Locke’s American contemporaries, and the belief of Benjamin H. Day,
expressed in 1883 in a talk with Edward P. Mitchell, the answer must
be in the negative. Yet it must be set down, as a literary curiosity
at least, that it has been believed in France and by at least one
English antiquary of repute that the moon hoax was the work of a
Frenchman--Jean Nicolas Nicollet, the astronomer.
Nicollet was born at Cluses, in Savoy, in 1786. First a cowherd, he did
not learn to read until he was twelve. Once at school his progress was
rapid, and at nineteen he become preceptor of mathematics at Chambry.
He went to Paris, where in 1817 he was appointed secretary-librarian
of the Observatory, and he studied astronomy with Laplace, who refers
to Nicollet’s assistance in his works. In 1823 he was appointed to the
government bureau of longitudes, and at the same time was professor of
mathematics in the College of Louis le Grand.
He became a master of English, and through this knowledge and his own
mathematical genius he was able to assemble, for the use of the French
life-insurance companies, all that was known, and much that he himself
discovered, of actuarial methods; this being incorporated in his letter
to M. Outrequin on “Assurances Having for Their Basis the Probable
Duration of Human Life.” He also wrote “Memoirs upon the Measure of an
Arc of Parallel Midway Between the Pole and the Equator” (1826), and
“Course of Mathematics for the Use of Mariners” (1830).
In 1831 Nicollet failed in speculation, losing not only his own fortune
but that of others. He came to the United States, arriving early in
1832, the very year that Locke came to America. It is probable that
he was in New York, but there is no evidence as to the length of
his stay. It is known, however, that he was impoverished, and that
he was assisted by Bishop Chanche, of Natchez, to go on with his
chosen work--an exploration of the Mississippi and its tributaries.
He made astronomical and barometrical observations, determined the
geographical position and elevation of many important points, and
studied Indian lore.
The United States government was so well pleased with Nicollet’s
work that it sent him to the Far West for further investigations,
with Lieutenant John C. Frémont as assistant. His “Geology of the
Upper Mississippi Region and of the Cretaceous Formation of the Upper
Missouri” was one of the results of his journeys. After this he tried,
through letters, to regain his lost standing in France by seeking
election to the Paris Academy of Sciences, but he was black-balled,
and, broken-hearted, he died in Washington in 1843.
The Englishman who believed that Nicollet was the author of the moon
hoax was Augustus De Morgan, father of the late William De Morgan, the
novelist, and himself a distinguished mathematician and litterateur.
He was professor of mathematics at University College, London, at the
time when the moon pamphlet first appeared in England. His “Budget
of Paradoxes,” an interesting collection of literary curiosities
and puzzles, which he had written, but not carefully assembled, was
published in 1872, the year after his death.
[Illustration:
THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF THE MOON HOAX
]
[Illustration:
A MOON SCENE, FROM LOCKE’S GREAT DECEPTION
]
Two fragments, printed separately in this volume, refer to the moon
hoax. The first is this:
“Some Account of the Great Astronomical Discoveries Lately
Made by Sir John Herschel at the Cape of Good Hope.”--Second
Edition, London, 12mo, 1836.
This is a curious hoax, evidently written by a person versed in
astronomy and clever at introducing probable circumstances and
undesigned coincidences. It first appeared in a newspaper. It makes Sir
J. Herschel discover men, animals, _et cetera_, in the moon, of which
much detail is given. There seems to have been a French edition, the
original, and English editions in America, whence the work came into
Britain; but whether the French was published in America or at Paris
I do not know. There is no doubt that it was produced in the United
States by M. Nicollet, an astronomer, once of Paris, and a fugitive of
some kind.
About him I have heard two stories. First, that he fled to America with
funds not his own, and that this book was a mere device to raise the
wind. Secondly, that he was a protégé of Laplace, and of the Polignac
party, and also an outspoken man. That after the Revolution he was so
obnoxious to the republican party that he judged it prudent to quit
France; which he did in debt, leaving money for his creditors, but
not enough, with M. Bouvard. In America he connected himself with an
assurance office. The moon story was written, and sent to France,
chiefly with the intention of entrapping M. Arago, Nicollet’s especial
foe, into the belief of it. And those who narrate this version of the
story wind up by saying that M. Arago _was_ entrapped, and circulated
the wonders through Paris until a letter from Nicollet to M. Bouvard
explained the hoax.
I have no personal knowledge of either story; but as the poor man had
to endure the first, it is but right that the second should be told
with it.
The second fragment reads as follows:
“The Moon Hoax; or, the Discovery That the Moon Has a Vast
Population of Human Beings.” By Richard Adams Locke.--New
York, 1859.
This is a reprint of the hoax already mentioned. I suppose “R. A.
Locke” is the name assumed by M. Nicollet. The publisher informs us
that when the hoax first appeared day by day in a morning newspaper,
the circulation increased fivefold, and the paper obtained a permanent
footing. Besides this, an edition of sixty thousand was sold off in
less than one month.
This discovery was also published under the name of A. R. Grant.
Sohnke’s “Bibliotheca Mathematica” confounds this Grant with Professor
R. Grant of Glasgow, the author of the “History of Physical Astronomy,”
who is accordingly made to guarantee the discoveries in the moon. I
hope Adams Locke will not merge in J. C. Adams, the codiscoverer of
Neptune. Sohnke gives the titles of three French translations of “The
Moon Hoax” at Paris, of one at Bordeaux, and of Italian translations at
Parma, Palermo, and Milan.
A correspondent, who is evidently fully master of details, which he has
given at length, informs me that “The Moon Hoax” first appeared in the
New York _Sun_, of which R. A. Locke was editor. It so much resembled
a story then recently published by Edgar A. Poe, in a Southern paper,
“Adventures of Hans Pfaall,” that some New York journals published
the two side by side. Mr. Locke, when he left the New York _Sun_,
started another paper, and discovered the manuscript of Mungo Park;
but this did not deceive. The _Sun_, however, continued its career,
and had a great success in an account of a balloon voyage from England
to America, in seventy-five hours, by Mr. Monck Mason, Mr. Harrison
Ainsworth, and others.
I have no doubt that M. Nicollet was the author of “The Moon Hoax,”
written in a way which marks the practised observatory astronomer
beyond all doubt, and by evidence seen in the most minute details.
Nicollet had an eye to Europe. I suppose that he took Poe’s story
and made it a basis for his own. Mr. Locke, it would seem, when he
attempted a fabrication for himself, did not succeed.
In his remark that “there seems to have been a French edition, the
original,” Augustus De Morgan was undoubtedly misled, for every
authority consultable agrees that the French pamphlets were merely
translations of the story originally printed in the _Sun_; and De
Morgan had learned this when he wrote his second note on the subject.
The M. Arago whom De Morgan believes Nicollet sought to entrap was
Dominique François Arago, the celebrated astronomer. In 1830, as a
reward for his many accomplishments, he was made perpetual secretary
of the Paris Academy of Sciences, and in the following year--the
year of Nicollet’s fall from grace--he was elected to the Chamber of
Deputies. As to the intimation that Arago was really misled by the moon
story, it is unlikely. W. N. Griggs, a contemporary of Locke, insists
in a memoir of that journalist that the narrative was read by Arago to
the members of the Academy, and was received with mingled denunciation
and laughter. But hoaxing Arago in a matter of astronomy would have
been a difficult feat. Surely the discrepancies pointed out by Poe
would have been noticed immediately.
It is, however, easy to understand De Morgan’s belief that Nicollet
was the author of the moon story. Much of the narrative, particularly
parts which have here been omitted, is made up of technicalities which
could have come only from the pen of a man versed in the intricacies
of astronomical science. They were not put into the story to interest
_Sun_ readers, for they are far over the layman’s head, but for the
purpose of adding verisimilitude to a yarn which, stripped of the
technical trimmings, would have been pretty bald.
It was plain to De Morgan that Nicollet was one of the few men alive in
1835 who could have woven the scientific fabric in which the hoax was
disguised. It was also apparent to him that Nicollet, jealous of the
popularity of Arago, might have had a motive for launching a satire, if
not a hoax. And then there was Nicollet’s presence in America at the
time of the moon story’s publication, Nicollet’s knowledge of English,
and Nicollet’s poverty. The coincidences are interesting, if nothing
more.
* * * * *
Let us see what the French said about Nicollet and the story that came
to the _Sun_ from “a medical gentleman immediately from Scotland.” In
a sketch of Nicollet printed in the “Biographie Universelle” (Michaud,
Paris, 1884), the following appears:
There has been attributed to him an article which appeared in
the daily papers of France, and which, in the form of a letter
dated from the United States, spoke of an improvement in the
telescope invented by the learned astronomer Herschel, who was
then at the Cape of Good Hope. It has been generally and with
much probability attributed to Nicollet.
With the aid of this admirable improvement Herschel was
supposed to have succeeded in discovering on the surface of the
moon live beings, buildings of various kinds, and a multitude
of other interesting things. The description of these objects
and the ingenious method employed by the English astronomer to
attain his purpose was so detailed, and covered with a veneer
of science so skilfully applied, that the general public was
startled by the announcement of the discovery, of which North
America hastened to send us the news.
It has even been said that several astronomers and physicists
of our country were taken in for a moment. That seems hardly
probable to us. It was easy to perceive that it was a hoax
written by a learned and mischievous person.
The “Nouvelle Biographie Générale” (Paris, 1862), says of Nicollet:
He is believed to be the author of the anonymous pamphlet
which appeared in 1836 on the discoveries in the moon made by
Herschel at the Cape of Good Hope.
Cruel, consistent Locke, never to have written down the details of
the conception and birth of the best invention that ever spoofed the
world! He leaves history to wonder whether it be possible that, with
one word added, the French biographer was right, and that it was “a
hoax written by a learned and _a_ mischievous person.” Certain it is
that Nicollet never wrote all of the moon story; certain, too, that
Locke wrote much, if not all of it. The calculations of the angles of
reflection might have been Nicollet’s, but the blue unicorn is the
unicorn of Locke.
No man can say when the germ of the story first took shape. It might
have been designed at any time after Herschel laid the plans for his
voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, and that was at least two years before
it appeared in the _Sun_. Was Nicollet in New York then, and did he and
Locke lay their heads together across a table at the American Hotel and
plan the great deceit?
There was one head full of figures and the stars; another crammed with
the imagination that brought forth the fire-making biped beavers and
the fascinating, if indecorous, human bats. If they never met, more is
the pity. Whether they met, none can say. Go to ask the ghosts of the
American Hotel, and you find it gone, and in its place the Woolworth
Building, earth’s spear levelled at the laughing moon.
Whatever happened, the credit must rest with Richard Adams Locke.
Even if the technical embellishments of the moon story were borrowed,
still his was the genius that builded the great temple, made flowers
to bloom in the lunar valleys, and grew the filmy wings on the
_vespertilio-homo_. His was the art that caused the bricklayer of
Cherry Street to sit late beside his candle, spelling out the rare
story with joyous labour. It must have been a reward to Locke, even to
the last of his seventy years, to know that he had made people read
newspapers who never had read them before; for that is what he really
accomplished by this huge, complex lie.
“From the epoch of the hoax,” wrote Poe, “the Sun shone with
unmitigated splendor. Its success firmly established the ‘penny system’
throughout the country, and (through the _Sun_) consequently we are
indebted to the genius of Mr. Locke for one of the most important steps
ever yet taken in the pathway of human progress.”