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
principles and capacity of the instrument with which these marvellous
discoveries have been made; but so will nearly all of those which he
has kindly permitted us to publish; and it was for this reason that
we considered the explicit description which we have given of the
telescope so important a preliminary. From these, however, and other
prohibited passages, which will be published by Dr. Herschel, with the
certificates of the civil and military authorities of the colony, and
of several Episcopal, Wesleyan, and other ministers, who, in the month
of March last, were permitted, under stipulation of temporary secrecy,
to visit the observatory, and become eye-witnesses of the wonders which
they were requested to attest, we are confident his forthcoming volumes
will be at once the most sublime in science, and the most intense in
general interest, that ever issued from the press.
The night of the 14th displayed the moon in her mean libration, or
full; but the somewhat humid state of the atmosphere being for several
hours less favorable to a minute inspection than to a general survey
of her surface, they were chiefly devoted to the latter purpose. But
shortly after midnight the last veil of mist was dissipated, and
the sky being as lucid as on the former evenings, the attention of
the astronomers was arrested by the remarkable outlines of the spot
marked Tycho, No. 18, in Blunt's lunar chart; and in this region they
added treasures to human knowledge which angels might well desire to
win. Many parts of the following extract will remain forever in the
chronicles of time:--