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 About fourteen years ago, I
think, "The New-York Sun", a daily paper, price one penny, was
established in the city
of New-York by Mr Moses Y.
Beach, who engaged Mr Richard Adams
Locke
as his editor. In a well-written prospectus, the object of the
journal
professed to be that of "supplying the public with the news of the day
at so cheap a rate as to lie within the means of all." The consequences
of the scheme, in their influence on the whole newspaper business of
the
country, and through this business on the interests of the country at
large,
are probably beyond all calculation. Previous to the "Sun" there had
been an
unsuccessful
attempt at publishing a penny paper in New-York; and the "Sun[["]]
itself
was
originally projected, and for a short time issued, by Mess. Day and
Wisner; its establishment, however, is due to Mr
Beach,
who purchased it of its disheartened originators. The first
decided movement of
the journal, nevertheless, is to be attributed to Mr Locke; and in so
saying I by no means intend any depreciation of Mr Beach — since in
the
engagement of Mr L. he had but given one of the earliest instances of
that sagacity for which I have every disposition to yield him credit. At all events the "Sun" was
revolving in a narrow orbit when, one day, there appeared in its
editorial
columns a prefatory article announcing very remarkable astronomical
discoveries
made at the Cape of Good Hope by Sir John Herschell. The
information
was said to have been received by the "Sun" from an early copy of the
"Edinburgh Journal of Science" in which appeared a communication from
Sir
John himself. This announcement took very well — there had
been few hoaxes in those days — and was followed by full details of the
reputed discoveries which were now found to have been made chiefly in
respect to the moon, and by means of a telescope to which the one
lately
constructed by the Earl of Rosse is a plaything. As these
discoveries
were gradually spread before the public the astonishment of that
public
grew out of all bounds; but those who questioned the veracity of the
"Sun"
— the authenticity of the communication to the "Edinburgh Journal of
Science"
— were really very few indeed: — and this I am forced to look upon as a
far
more wonderful thing than any "man-bat" of them all. About six months before this
occurrence
the
Harpers had issued an American edition of Sir John Herschell's
"Treatise
on Astronomy,[["]] and I had been much interested in what is there said
respecting
the possibility of future lunar investigations. The theme excited
my fancy, and I longed to give it free rein in depicting my
day-dreams
about the scenery of the moon. In short, I wished to write a story
embodying
these
dreams. The obvious difficulty was to account for
the
narrator's acquaintance with the satellite; and the equally obvious
mode
of surmounting this difficulty was the supposition of an extraordinary
telescope. I saw that the main interest of such a narrative must depend
upon
the reader's yielding his credence as to
actual
fact. At this stage of my deliberations, I spoke of the design to
one or two friends — to Mr. John P. Kennedy, the author of "Swallow
Barn,"
among others — and the result of my conversations with them was, that
the
optical difficulties of constructing such a telescope as I needed,
were
so rigid and so generally understood, that it would be vain to
attempt
giving due verisimilitude to my fiction with the telescope as a
basis.
Reluctantly, therefore — believing the public,
in fact, more readily gullible than did my friends — I gave up the idea
of imparting very close vraisemblance to what I should write —
that is
to say, so close as really to deceive — and falling back upon a tone
half
plausible half bantering, resolved to give what interest I could
to
the account of an actual passage from the earth to the moon; describing
the lunar
scenery
as if surveyed and personally explored by the narrator. In this
view
I wrote a story called "Hans Phaall" and published it in "The Southern
Literary Messenger", of which I was then editor. Three weeks after the
issue of this story, the first of
the moon-hoax editorials made its appeared in the "Sun"; and 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 — among others "The Transcript" — saw the
matter
in the same light, and printed the two stories side by side with "Hans
Phaall," thinking that the author of the one had been detected in the
author
of the other. Although the details are dissimilar, still I
maintain
that the characteristic features of the 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 before the publication of his own — I am bound also to add
that I believe him. Immediately on the completion
of the
Moon-story
(it was three or four days in getting finished) I wrote an examination
of its claim to credit, and pointed out distinctly its fictitious
character;
but was astonished at finding that I could obtain few listeners: — so
really
eager were all to be deceived: — so magical were the charms of a style
that
served as the vehicle of an exceedingly clumsy invention. Even now, it
may afford some amusement to see designated those particulars
of the hoax which should have sufficed to insure its detection. Indeed,
however rich the imagination displayed in this fiction, it
might have been much more forcible by closer attention
to analogy and to fact. That the public were misled, even
for an instant, proves nothing so clearly as the gross ignorance which,
thirteen or fourteen
years ago, was so prevalent on astronomical topics. The moon's distance from the
earth is, in
round
numbers, 240,000 miles. If we wish to ascertain how near,
apparently,
a lens will bring the satellite, we
have but to divide the distance by the magnifying or, more strictly,
by
the space-penetrating power of the glass. Mr Locke gives his
lens
a power of 42,000 times. By this number divide 240,000, the moon's real
distance; and, as the apparent distance, we have five miles and five
sevenths. No animal whatever could be seen so far — much less the
minute points
particularized
in the story — such as the flowers of the papaver Rheas. The
blunder of describing such things is rendered more obvious by the
author's own observation that his lens would not render perceptible,
objects
less
than eighteen inches in diameter; — but even this, as I have said, is
giving
the glass far too great power. On page 18, of the pamphlet
edition,
speaking
of "a hairy veil" over the eyes of a species of bison, Mr L. says —
"It
immediately occurred to the acute mind of Doctor Herschell 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." But this should not be thought
a very "acute" observation of the Doctor's. The "extremes" mentioned do
not exist. The inhabitants of
our
side of the moon have, evidently, no darkness at all; in the absence of
the sun they have a light from the earth equal to that of thirteen full
moons. The topography throughout, even
when
professing
to accord with Blunt's Lunar Chart, is at variance with that and all
other
lunar charts, and at variance with itself. The points of the
compass, too, are in sad confusion; the writer seeming to be unaware
that,
on a lunar map, these do not coincide with terrestrial points —
the
East being to the left. Deceived, perhaps, by the vague
titles "Mare
Nubium," "Mare Tranquilitatis," "Mare Fæcunditatis,"
etc. given
by
astronomers of former times to the dark patches on the moon's surface,
Mr L. has long details respecting oceans and other large bodies of
water
in the moon; whereas there is no astronomical point more positively
ascertained
than that no such bodies exist there. In examining the line
between
light and darkness, in a crescent or gibbous moon, there is always
observed a jaggedness, or roughness, where this line crosses any of the
dark patches; but were these latter liquid, the boundary would
evidently been seen. The description of the wings of
the
"man-bats",
at page 21, is but a literal copy of Peter Wilkins' account of the
wings
of his Flying Islanders. This simple fact, it might be thought,
should have induced suspicion at the least. On page 23 we read thus: — "What
a
prodigious
influence must our thirteen times larger globe have exercised upon this
satellite when [[page 97, from fragment, in Gimbel collection:]]
an
embryo
in the womb of time, the passive subject of chemical affinity." Now
this
is very fine; but it should be observed that no astronomer could have
made
such [[a]] remark — especially to any "Journal of Science"; for the
earth,
in the sense intended, is not only thirteen but forty-nine times
"larger"
than
the moon. A similar objection applies to the five or six
concluding
pages of the pamphlet, where, by way of introduction to some
discoveries
in Saturn, the philosophical correspondent is made to give a minute
school-boy
account of that planet — an account quite supererogatory, it might be
presumed,
where the party instructed is the "Edinburgh Journal of Science". But there is one point in
especial which
should
have instantly betrayed the fiction. Let us imagine the power
really
possessed of seeing animals on the surface of the moon: — what, in such
case, would first arrest the attention of an observer from the
earth? Certainly, neither the shape, size, nor any other peculiarity in
these
animals so soon as their remarkable position; they would seem
to
be walking heels up and head down, after the fashion of flies on a
ceiling. The real observer however prepared by previous knowledge,
would have
commented
on this odd phenomenon before proceeding to other details; the
fictitious
observer has not even alluded to the subject, but, in the case of the
man-bats,
speaks of seeing their entire bodies, when it is demonstrable that he
could
have seen little more than the apparently flat hemisphere of their
heads.
I may as well observe, here that the size, and especially the powers of
the man-bats (for example, their ability to fly in so rare an
atmosphere
— if indeed the moon has any) with most of the other fancies in regard
to animal and vegetable existence, are at variance generally with all
analogical
reasoning on these themes, and that on these themes analogical
inference often
amounts
to the most positive demonstration. The temperature of the moon,
for instance, is rather above that of boiling water; and Mr Locke,
consequently,
has committed a serious oversight in not representing his man-bats, his
bisons, his birds, his game of all kinds — to say nothing of his
vegetables — as
each
and all done to a turn. It is, perhaps, scarcely
necessary to add
that the suggestions attributed to Brewster and Herschell, in the
beginning
of the hoax, about "the transfusion of artificial light through the
focal
object of vision" etc. etc. belong to that species of figurative
writing
which comes most properly under the head of rigmarole. To optical
discovery
in the heavens there is a real and very definite limit the nature of
which
need only be stated to be understood. If, indeed, the casting of
large lenses were all that is required, the ingenuity of man would
ultimately
prove equal to the task, and we might have them of any size demanded.
Neither
of the Herschells even dreamed of a speculum six feet in diameter; and
now
the
marvel has been accomplished by Lord Rosse. There is, in fact, no
physical impossibility in our casting lenses of fifty feet diameter,
or more. We require only a sufficiency of means and skill. But,
unhappily,
in proportion to the increase of size in the lens, and consequently of
space-penetrating power, is the diminution of light from the object
surveyed, through the diffusion of the rays. And for this evil there is
no remedy
within
human reach; for an object is seen by means of that light alone,
whether
direct or reflected, which proceeds from the object itself. Thus
the only artificial light which could avail Mr. Locke, would be such as
he should be able to throw, not upon "the focal object of vision", but
upon the moon. It has been easily calculated that when
the
light proceeding from a heavenly body becomes so diffused as to be no
stronger
than the natural light given out by the stars collectively in a clear
moonless
night, then the heavenly body, for any practical purpose, is no longer
visible. The singular blunders to which
I have
referred
being properly understood, we shall have the better reason for
wonder
at the prodigious success of the hoax. Not one person in
ten
discredited it; and it is especially noticable that the doubters were,
for the most part, those who doubted without being able to say why —
the
ignorant — those uninformed in astronomy — people who would not
believe
merely because the thing was so novel — so entirely "out of the usual
way."
A grave professor in a Virginian college — a professor of
mathematics,
too, — told me seriously that he had no doubt of the
truth
of the whole affair, and was at length convinced of [page
99:] [[. . .]][[. . .]] the deception only upon seeing my own previous jeu d'esprit. The great effect wrought on the public mind is attributable, first, to the novelty of the conception; secondly, to the fancy-exciting and reason-repressing character of the alleged discoveries; thirdly, to the tact with which the matter was brough forth; and, fourthly, to the vraisemblance of the narration. [[A note written in pencil on this fragment reads: "Here introduce the discussion of vraisemblance from Margin. in Grahams."]] |
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