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
from mountainous obstruction. Sir John Herschel, therefore, not only
accepted the appointment with high satisfaction, but requested that
it might commence at least a year before the period of the transit,
to afford him time to bring his ponderous and complicated machinery
into perfect adjustment, and to extend his knowledge of the southern
constellations.
His wish was immediately assented to, and his arrangements being
completed, he sailed from London on the 4th of September, 1834,
in company with Dr. Andrew Grant, Lieutenant Drummond, of the
Royal Engineers, F.R.A.S., and a large party of the best English
mechanics. They arrived, after an expeditious and agreeable passage,
and immediately proceeded to transport the lens, and the frame of
the large observatory, to its destined site, which was a piece of
table-land of great extent and elevation, about thirty-five miles to
the north-east of Capetown; and which is said to be the very spot on
which De la Caille, in 1750, constructed his invaluable solar tables,
when he measured a degree of the meridian, and made a great advance, to
exactitude in computing the solar parallax from that of Mars and the
Moon. Sir John accomplished the ascent to the plains by means of two
relief teams of oxen, of eighteen each, in about four days; and, aided
by several companies of Dutch boors, proceeded at once to the erection
of his gigantic fabric.
The ground plan of the structure is in some respects similar to that
of the Herschel telescope in England, except that instead of circular
foundations of brickwork, it consists of parallel circles of railroad
iron, upon wooden framework; so constructed that the turn-outs, or
rather turn-ins, from the largest circle, will conduct the observatory,
which moves upon them, to the innermost circle, which is the basis of
the lens-works; and to each of the circles that intervene. The diameter
of the smallest circle is twenty-eight feet: that of the largest our
correspondent has singularly forgotten to state, though it may be
in some measure computed from the angle of incidence projected by
the lens, and the space occupied by the observatory. The latter is a
wooden building fifty feet square and as many high, with a flat roof
and gutters of thin copper. Through the side proximate to the lens,
is an aperture four feet in diameter to receive its rays, and through
the roof another for the same purpose in meridional observations. The
lens, which is inclosed in a frame of wood, and braced to its corners
by bars of copper, is suspended upon an axis between two pillars which
are nearly as high as those which supported the celebrated quadrant of
Uleg Beg, being one hundred and fifty feet. These are united at the top
and bottom by cross-pieces, and strengthened by a number of diagonal
braces; and between them is a double capstan for hoisting the lens from
its horizontal line with the observatory to the height required by
its focal distance when turned to the meridian; and for elevating it