Then comes a description of the construction of the object-glass, twenty-four feet in diameter, 'just six times the size of the elder Herschel's;' who, by the way, never made a telescope with an object-glass. The account of Sir John Herschel's journey from England, and even some details of the construction of the observatory, were based on facts, indeed, so many persons in America as well as in England were acquainted with some of these circumstances, that it was essential to follow the facts as closely as possible. Of course, also, some explanation had to be given of the circumstance that nothing had before been heard respecting the gigantic instrument taken out by Sir John Herschel. 'Whether,' says the story, 'the British Government were sceptical concerning the promised splendour of the discoveries, or wished them to be scrupulously veiled until they had accumulated a full-orbed glory for the nation and reign in which they originated, is a question which we can only conjecturally solve. But certain it is that the astronomer's royal patrons enjoined a masonic taciturnity upon him and his friends until he should have officially communicated the results of his great experiment.' It was not till the night of January 10, 1835, that the mighty telescope was at length directed towards our satellite. The part of the moon selected was on the eastern part of her disc. 'The whole immense power of the telescope was applied, and to its focal image about one half of the power of the microscope. On removing the screen of the latter, the field of view was covered throughout its entire area with a beautifully distinct and even vivid representation of _basaltic rock_. Its colour was a greenish brown; and the width of the columns, as defined by their interstices on the canvas, was invariably twenty-eight inches. No fracture whatever appeared in the mass first presented; but in a few seconds a shelving pile appeared, of five or six columns' width, which showed their figure to be hexagonal, and their articulations similar to those of the basaltic formation at Staffa. This precipitous cliff was profusely covered with a dark red flower, precisely similar, says Dr. Grant, to the Papaver Rhoeus, or Rose Poppy, of our sublunary cornfields; and this was the first organic production of nature in a foreign world ever revealed to the eyes of men.'