[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.