And speaking of green silk, in this connection, reminds us of green cheese. But, psha! _that_ idea is exploded. If we proceed in this strain, noticing and commenting upon every wild vagary of those romancing fellows, the astronomers, somebody may accuse us of wishing to make light of the moon, the which is the furthest thing on earth from our intention. Didst ever read Locke’s Moon Hoax? We were a school-boy at Albany when it was first published, and we recollect well how gravely the old master of a certain school in North Pearl street—the boys used to call him the Centre of Gravity—announced his full belief in its authenticity, and advised the class in Algebra to look over the calculations. And how an old lady of our acquaintance wrote an article on the wonders of modern science, and the probabilities of a railroad to the moon in the course of a generation or two, which the editor of the Evening Journal wouldn’t publish; whereat the old lady denounced him to us savagely. We have never been able ever since to think of Mr. Weed, except as a man radically opposed to internal improvements—externally projected. What a demand there was for telescopes and Extra Suns! What crowds of people there were for two or three nights on Capitol Hill, gaping at the full moon, as if they expected to discover one of Mr. Locke’s hooded sheep grazing on the rays which shot from her broad, round disc. There is one theory of these wise ones that seems to concern us mundane fellows a little more nearly. It is said that the moon, owing to her less size and small distance from the earth, has but little comparative attractive power, and that a body projected but a short distance from the surface of the moon would stand as fair a chance for a sublunary fall, as for a return to its original sphere. And now we recollect, in this place, that although we have a well authenticated account of the Man in the Moon’s coming down to the earth, there is no record of his return. Perhaps the Lunars have a motto—_Facilis descensis Terrae, etc._ The adventurer aforesaid may be carrying on the chandlery business in Norwich this day, or perhaps traveling in company with the Wandering Jew, seeking for “the jumping-off place.” Who knows but that all the moon-faced people we encounter are descendants of this great descender. Or, dear brother lunatic, it may be that _we_ may claim a celestial ancestry in his person, and that the idiosyncrasy which distinguishes us from common mortals, is the result of an instinctive longing for the bright former home of our common progenitor. But to return; despite the facility with which, as this theory seems to indicate, our foreign relations may come to us on a lasting visit, this notion of the looseness and levity of matters and things on the moon’s surface is unpleasantly suggestive. We remember ugly stories of big, odd-looking stones, found newly half-buried in the ground, the origin of which folks