The moon hoax : $b or, A discovery that the moon has a vast population of human beings — John Locke — John Shaqi
The moon hoax : $b or, A discovery that the moon has a vast population of human beings
John Locke · en
So sanguinely indeed did he calculate upon the advantages of this
splendid alliance, that he expressed confidence in his ultimate ability
to study even the entomology of the moon, in case she contained insects
upon her surface. Having witnessed the completion of this great lens,
and its safe transportation to the metropolis, his next care was the
construction of a suitable microscope, and of the mechanical frame-work
for the horizontal and vertical action of the whole. His plans in every
branch of his undertaking having been intensely studied, even to their
minutest details, were easily and rapidly executed. He awaited only the
appointed period at which he was to convey his magnificent apparatus to
its destination.
A correspondence had for some time passed between the Boards of
England, France, and Austria, with a view to improvements in the
tables of longitude in the southern hemisphere; which are found to
be much less accurate than those of the northern. The high opinion
entertained by the British Board of Longitude of the principles of the
new telescope, and of the profound skill of its inventor, determined
the government to solicit his services in observing the transit of
Mercury over the sun's disk, which will take place on the 7th of
November in the present year: and which, as it will occur at 7h. 47m.
55s. night, conjunction, meantime; and at 8h. 12m. 22s. middle, true
time, will be invisible to nearly all the northern hemisphere. The
place at which the transits of Mercury and of Venus have generally
been observed by the astronomers of Europe, when occurring under these
circumstances, is the Cape of Good Hope; and no transit of Venus having
occurred since the year 1769, and none being to occur before 1874,
the accurate observation of the transits of Mercury, which occur more
frequently, has been found of great importance both to astronomy and
navigation. To the latter useful art, indeed, the transits of Mercury
are nearly as important as those of Venus; for although those of the
latter planet have the peculiar advantage of determining exactly the
great solar parallax, and thence the distances of all the planets
from the sun, yet the transits of Mercury, by exactly determining
the place of its own node, independently of the parallax of the great
orb, determine the parallax of the earth and moon; and are therefore
especially valuable in lunar observations of Longitude. The Cape of
Good Hope has been found preferable, in these observations, to any
other station in the hemisphere. The expedition which went to Peru,
about the middle of the last century, to ascertain, in conjunction with
another in Lapland, the true figure of the earth, found the attraction
of the mountainous regions so strong as to cause the plum-line of
one of their large instruments to deflect seven or eight seconds
from the true perpendicular; whilst the elevated plains at the Cape
unite all the advantages of a lucid atmosphere with an entire freedom