Locke knew about Sir John and his mission. The Matthias case had blown over, the big fire in Fulton Street was almost forgotten, and things were a bit dull on the island of Manhattan. The newspapers were in a state of armed truce. As Locke and his fellow journalists gathered at the American Hotel bar for their after-dinner brandy, it is probable that there was nothing, not even the great sloth recently arrived at the American Museum, to excite a good argument. Locke needed money, for his salary of twelve dollars a week could ill support the fine gentleman that he was; so he laid a plan before Mr. Day. It was a plot as well as a plan, and the first angle of the plot appeared on the second page of the _Sun_ on August 21, 1835: CELESTIAL DISCOVERIES--The Edinburgh _Courant_ says--“We have just learnt from an eminent publisher in this city that Sir John Herschel, at the Cape of Good Hope, has made some astronomical discoveries of the most wonderful description, by means of an immense telescope of an entirely new principle.” Nothing further appeared until Tuesday, August 25, when three columns of the _Sun’s_ first page took the newspaper and scientific worlds by the ears. Those were not the days of big type. The _Sun’s_ heading read: GREAT ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES. LATELY MADE BY SIR JOHN HERSCHEL, LL.D., F.R.S., &c. At the Cape of Good Hope. [_From Supplement to the Edinburgh Journal of Science._] It may as well be said here that although there had been an Edinburgh _Journal of Science_, it ceased to exist several years before 1835. The periodical to which Dr. Dick, of Dundee, contributed his moon theories was, in a way, the successor to the _Journal of Science_, but it was called the _New Philosophical Journal_. The likeness of names was not great, but enough to cause some confusion. It is also noteworthy that the sly Locke credited to a supplement, rather than to the _Journal of Science_ itself, the revelations which he that day began to pour before the eyes of _Sun_ readers. Thus he started: In this unusual addition to our _Journal_ we have the happiness of making known to the British public, and thence to the whole civilized 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 proud distinction through all future time. It has been poetically said 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. [Illustration: RICHARD ADAMS LOCKE, AUTHOR OF THE MOON HOAX From an Engraving in the Possession of His Granddaughter, Mrs. F. Winthrop White of New Brighton, S. I. ]