The account opens with a passage unmistakably from an American hand, though purporting, be it remembered, to be quoted 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 civilised 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' [where and by whom?] 'that the stars of heaven are the hereditary regalia of man, as the intellectual sovereign of the animal creation. He may now fold the zodiac around him with a loftier consciousness of his mental supremacy.' To the American mind enwrapment in the star-jewelled zodiac may appear as natural as their ordinary oratorical references to the star-spangled banner; but the idea is essentially transatlantic, and not even the most poetical European astronomer could have risen to such a height of imagery. Passing over several pages of introductory matter, we come to the description of the method by which a telescope of sufficient magnifying power to show living creatures in the moon was constructed by Sir John Herschel. It had occurred, it would seem, to the elder Herschel to construct an improved series of parabolic and spherical reflectors 'uniting all the meritorious points in the Gregorian and Newtonian instruments, with the highly interesting achromatic discovery of Dolland'(_sic_). [This is much as though one should say that a clever engineer had conceived the idea of constructing an improved series of railway engines, combining all the meritorious points in stationary and locomotive engines, with _Isaac_ Watts' highly ingenious discovery of screw propulsion. For the Gregorian and Newtonian instruments simply differ in sending the rays received from the great mirror in different directions, and Dolland's discovery relates to the ordinary forms of telescopes with large lens, not with large mirror.] However, accumulating infirmities and eventually death prevented Sir William Herschel from applying his plan, which 'evinced the most profound research in optical science, and the most dexterous ingenuity in mechanical contrivance. But his son, Sir John Herschel, nursed and cradled in the observatory, and a practical astronomer from his boyhood, 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.' A short account of the observations made with this instrument, now magnifying six thousand times, follows, in which most of the astronomical statements are very correctly and justly worded, being, in fact, borrowed from a paper by Sir W. Herschel on observation of the moon with precisely that power.