 | Tales of the grotesque and arabesque |  |
APPENDIX.
In a note to the title of the story called “Hans Phaal,” 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 ingenious
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
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 Fœcunditatis, &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
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
vision,” &c., &c., belong to that species of figurative writing
which comes, most properly, under the denomination of rigmarole.
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
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.
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.
| Tales of the grotesque and arabesque | |