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[page 223:]
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APPENDIX.
IN a note to
the title of the
story called "Hans Phaal [[Phaall]]," I made allusion to the
"moon-hoax"
of Mr. Locke. As a great many more persons were actually gulled by this
jeu d'esprit than would be willing to acknowledge
the fact, it may
here afford some little amusement to show why no one should have been
deceived
— to point out those particulars of the story which should have been
sufficient
to establish its real character. Indeed, however rich the imagination
displayed
in this in- genious fiction, it wanted much of the force which might
have
been given it by a more scrupulous attention to general analogy and
physical
truth. That the public were misled, even for an instant, merely proves
the gross ignorance which is so generally prevalent upon subjects of an
astronomical nature.
The moon's distance from the earth
is, in round numbers,
240,000 miles. If we desire to ascertain how near, apparently, a lens
would
bring the satellite, (or any distant object,) we, of course, have but
to
divide the distance by the magnifying power of the glass. Mr. L. makes
his lens have a magnifying power of 42,000 times. By this divide
240,000
(the moon's real distance), and we have five miles and five-sevenths,
as
the apparent distance. No animal at all could be seen so far; much less
the minute points particularised in the story. Mr. L. speaks about Sir
John Herschell's perceiving flowers (the Papaver rheas, &c.), and
even
detecting the color and the shape of the eyes of small birds. Shortly
before,
too, he has himself [page 224:] observed that the
lens
would not render perceptible objects of less than eighteen inches in
diameter;
but even this, as I have said, is giving the glass by far too great
power.
It may be observed, en passant, that his prodigious glass is
said
to have been moulded at the glass-house of Messrs. Hartley and Grant in
Dumbarton; but Messrs. H. and G.'s establishment had ceased operations
for many years previous to the publication of the hoax.
On page 13, pamphlet edition,
speaking of "a hairy
veil" over the eyes of a species of bison, the author says — "It
immediately
occurred to the acute mind of Dr. 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 cannot be thought a very "acute"
observation of the Doctor's. The inhabitants of our side of the moon
have,
evidently, no darkness at all; so there can be nothing of the
"extremes"
mentioned. 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 entirely at variance with that or
any
other lunar chart, and even grossly at variance with itself. The points
of the compass, too, are in inextricable confusion — the writer
appearing
to be ignorant that, on a lunar map, these are not in accordance with
terrestrial
points; the east being to the left, &c.
Deceived, perhaps, by the vague
titles, Mare Nubium,
Mare Tranquillitatis, Mare Foecunditatis, &c., given to the
dark
spots by former astronomers, Mr. L. has entered into long details
regarding
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 boundary between light and darkness (in a
crescent or gibbous moon) where this boundary crosses any of the dark
places,
the line of division is found to be rough and jagged — but were these
dark
places liquid, it would evidently be even.
The description of the wings of the
man-bat, on page
21, is [page 225:] but a literal copy of Peter
Wilkins'
account of the wings of his flying islanders. This simple fact should
have
induced suspicion, at least, it might be thought.
On page 23, we have the following.
"What a prodigious
influence must our thirteen times larger globe have exercised upon this
satellite when an embryo in the womb of time, the passive subject of
chemical
affinity!" This is very fine — but it should be observed that no
astronomer
would have made such remark, especially to any Journal of Science — for
the earth, in the sense intended, is not only 13, but 49 times larger
than the moon. A similar objection applies to the whole of the
concluding
pages, where, by way of introduction to some discoveries in Saturn, the
philosophical correspondent enters into a minute schoolboy account of
that
planet — this to the Edinburgh Journal of Science!
But there is one point, in
particular, which should
have discovered the fiction. Let us imagine the power actually
possessed
of seeing animals upon the moon's surface — what would first
arrest
the attention of an observer from the earth? Certainly neither their
shape,
size, nor any other such peculiarity, so soon as their remarkable situation.
They would appear to be walking with heels up and head down, in the
manner
of flies on a ceiling. The real observer would have uttered an instant
ejaculation of surprise (however prepared by previous knowledge) at the
singularity of their position; the fictitious observer has not
even
mentioned the subject at all, but speaks of seeing the entire bodies of
such creatures, when it is demonstrable that he could have seen only
the
diameter of their heads!
It might as well be remarked, in
conclusion, that
the size, and particularly the powers of the man-bats (for example,
their
ability to fly in so rare an atmosphere — if indeed the moon have 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 analogy here will often amount to conclusive demonstration. It
is, perhaps, scarcely necessary to add, that all the suggestions
attributed
to Brewster and Herschell, in the beginning of the article, about [page
226:] "a transfusion of artificial light through the focal
object
of vision," &c., &c., belong to that species of figurative
writing
which comes, most properly, under the denomination of rigma- role.
I have lately read a singular and
somewhat ingenious
little book, whose title page runs thus — "L'Homme dans la lvne, ou le
Voyage Chimerique fait au Monde de la Lvne, nouuellement decouuert par
Dominique Gonzales, Aduanturier Espagnol, autremèt dit le
Courier
volant. Mis en notre langve par J. B. D. A. Paris, chez François
Piot, pres la Fontaine de Saint Benoist. Et chez J. Goignard, au
premier
pilier de la grand' salle du Palais, proche les Consultations,
MDCXLVIII."
pp. 176.
The writer professes to have
translated his work
from the English of one Mister D'Avisson (Davidson?) although there is
a terrible ambiguity in the statement. "I'en ai eu," says he,
"l'original
de Monsieur D'Avisson, medecin des mieux versez qui soient aujourd'huy
dans la cònoissance des Belles Lettres, et sur tout de la
Philosophie
Naturelle. Je lui ai cette obligation entre les autres, de m'auoir non
seulement mis en main ce Livre en anglois, mais encore le Manuscrit du
Sieur Thomas D'Anan, gentilhomme Eccossois, recommandable pour sa
vertu,
sur la version duquel j'advoue que j'ay tiré le plan de la
mienne."
After some irrelevant adventures,
much in the manner
of Gil Blas, and which occupy the first thirty pages, the author
relates
that, being ill during a sea-voyage, the crew abandoned him, together
with
a negro servant, on the island St. Helena. To increase the chances of
obtaining
food, the two separate, and live as far apart as possible. This brings
about a training of birds, to serve the purpose of carrier-pigeons
between
them. By-and-by these are taught to carry parcels of some weight — and
this weight is gradually increased. At length the idea is entertained
of
uniting the force of a great number of the birds, with a view to
raising
the author himself. A machine is contrived for the purpose, and we have
a minute description of it, which is materially helped out by a steel
engraving.
Here we perceive the Signor Gonzales, with point ruffles and a huge [page
227:] periwig, seated astride something which resembles very
closely a broomstick, and borne aloft by a multitude of wild swans
(ganzas)
who have strings reaching from their tails to the machine.
The main event detailed in the
Signor's narrative
depends upon a very important fact, of which the reader is kept in
ignorance
until near the end of the book. The ganzas, with whom he had
become
so familiar, were not really denizens of St. Helena, but of the moon.
Thence
it had been their custom, time out of mind, to migrate annually to some
portion of the earth. In proper season, of course, they would return
home;
and the author happening, one day, to require their services for a
short
voyage, is unexpectedly carried straight up, and in a very brief period
arrives at the satellite. Here he finds, among other odd things, that
the
people enjoy extreme happiness; that they have no law; that they die
without
pain; that they range from ten to thirty feet in height; that they live
five thousand years; that they have an emperor called Irdonozur; and
that
they can jump sixty feet high, when, being out of the gravitating
influence,
they fly about with fans.
I cannot forbear giving a specimen of
the general philosophy of the volume.
"I must now declare to you," says the
Signor Gonzales,
"the nature of the place in which I found myself. All the clouds were
beneath
my feet, or, if you please, spread between me and the earth. As to the
stars, since there was no night where I was, they always had the same
appearance;
not brilliant, as usual, but pale, and very nearly like the moon of a
morning.
But few of them were visible, and these ten times larger (as well as I
could judge) than they seem to the inhabitants of the earth. The moon,
which wanted two days of being full, was of a terrible bigness.
"I must not forget here, that the
stars appeared
only on that side of the globe turned towards the moon, and that the
closer
they were to it the larger they seemed. I have also to inform you that,
whether it was calm weather or stormy, I found myself always
immediately
between the moon and the earth. [page 228:] was
convinced
of this for two reasons — because my birds always flew in a straight
line;
and because, whenever we attempted to rest, we were carried insensibly
around the globe of the earth. For I admit the opinion of Copernicus,
who
maintains that it never ceases to revolve from the east to the west,
not upon the poles of the Equinoctial, commonly called the poles of the
world, but upon those of the Zodiac — a question of which I propose to
speak more at length hereafter, when I shall have leisure to refresh my
memory in regard to the astrology which I learned at Salamanca when
young,
and have since forgotten."
Notwithstanding the blunder
italicised, which 'is
no doubt a mere lapsus linguæ, the book is not without
some
claim to attention, as affording a näïve specimen of the
current
astronomical notions of the time. One of these assumed, that the "
gravitating
power" extended but a short distance from the earth's surface — and,
accordingly,
we find our voyager "carried insensibly around the globe," &c.
THE END.
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