28 



Tribune Extras Pamphlet Series. 



the abode of life. Wo Know what happened. He found 

 there a surface covered with mountains so that he com- 

 pared them in number on the moon to the "eyes" on a 

 peacock's tttil. Where there appeared to be dark 

 surfaces of a level nature ho culled them aeas. 

 lie found them to be really solid, and afterward tele- 

 scopic observarions wont, on, and all that was fouud was 

 the gradual enlargement of these features, and tbe reve- 

 lation of new details, but nothing to suggest tuat life 

 existed on that arid i-urface. Men went on liopintr that 

 with telescopes of increased size more would be ol> 

 tained. It was thought tliat with Herschel'a great tel- 

 CBtsope something more would bo determined. Herscael 

 thought he could rccognizu in the bright part of the 

 moou signs of volcanic action, because he saw a faint 

 liL'ht as of volcanic eruption. We know it was only the 

 rcflecttd light of tbe eartii. 



Other efforts were ma lo, and ir was at that time that 

 some one in America, a Mr. Locke, conceived the idea of 

 publishing that strange book, the Moon Hoax, which 

 misled not only the mass, but those who were well edu- 

 cated. .There was great ingenuity displayed In the 

 method of its construction. There is the conversation 

 between Brewster and Sir John Herschel, the enthusi- 

 asm of Bnnvster, which is very comically described, as 

 lie l( aps fr, in his scat and, catching Herschel by the 

 La i <!, exclaims, "Thou art the man 1" 



Then a curious appearance of different flames, and 

 tl.cn animals which seemed to escape away whenever 

 the observer tiled to lix his attomion upon them; and 

 the Bat-men monstrous civatures and tbe compari- 

 son iietween these B. it-men and the militia of London. 

 At this point the story seemed too absurd for belief; yet 

 we can Imagine the impivssion it made, when some one 

 wrote to Sir John Her schel Irom America, asking if it 

 was true, and urging means of conveying religious in- 

 struction to the poor benighted inhabitants of the moon. 

 [Laughter.] And, strangely, at a quite recent time, the 

 idea has been suggested of studying the 

 moon, so as to discover living creatures 

 there, by the same method. I saw a few days ago in an 

 American paper an idea based on the same mistake that 

 exit-ted In that Moou Hoax, only there it was iioj a 

 mistake but a trick. If you have the image of the moon 

 photographed to perfection, it seemed as though you 

 might magnify that imago bv the microscope and see 

 ob|cct8 of half a mile or less in size, if not recognize liv- 

 ing cn-atures. But this is the same mistake as those 

 make who l>lieve in the transfusion of light. What the 

 astronomer does when he sees the moon through a telo- 

 ecope, or when he takes a photograph of the moon is 

 to magnify the imago as much as it will bear. 

 If he interposes a screen and tries to magnify the image, 

 Lc is magnifying a moon less perfect; his best chance is 

 by looking through the eve-piece at the imago in the 

 focus of (ho leie.t.'ope. There is a limit in the telescope 

 beyond which it cannot be increased. I heard, a few 

 days ago. that the observatory to be established on the, 

 Bocky Mountains will bring the moon within thirty 

 miles of us; but that is impossible. I. is not a question 

 of a place above the atmosphere, seeing the moon 

 through the rarer par IB of tiiu atmosphere, 



but the optical difficulty. Tha optical lai*c 

 formed by the object-glass of the astronomef 

 has defects, and if you magnify it you maguifv th 

 detects. When you get beyond a certain point it is use- 

 less to magnify the image as it appears, and there is no 

 hope, of any telescope larger than Russe's to get a close 

 view of the moon. [The best view of it obtained, pcr- 

 haps, is that at the Cambridge Observatory.] We have 

 images here taken by the Cambridge refractor, and there 

 are all the details, as you see, of the craters and 11 j,ws 

 and irregularities of surface, but no sign of life can be 

 seen. 



EVIDENCES OF ABSENCE OF ATMOSPHERE. 



When we begin to inquire- into th relations of me 

 moou, we see how hopeless it is to expect signs of life. 

 We have an orb having no atmosphere, or a very 

 shallow one. This is shown by the fact that shadows 

 thrown by the lunar mountains are seen as tbebb black 

 parts, indicating that there is no considerable atmos- 

 phere. An observer watching our earth from the 

 moon would not see black shadows but dark 

 shadows, of greater and greater darkness, lint 

 there would bo a certain amount of light in 

 the valleys all around tbe mountains ; for we 

 knowwe can st-ind on a mountain top wheu the sun ia 

 rising and see that the valley below is not black: there 

 is fwilight there, and it comes from the atmosphere. If 

 there were atmosphere in the moon, an observer from 

 the earth would see shadows thrown all around the 

 mountains, but not black ones. The blackness of the 

 lunar shadows shows that there is no illuminated sky 

 such as ours, no atmosphere to illuminate those regions, 

 and that is the first proof that the moon has no appre- 

 ciable atmosphere. 



On our earth, as you know, there ia a twilight surface 

 extending a very great distance, which divides true 

 sunlight from the place where there is no sun, and the 

 twilight surface extends over 18 degrees on the earth. 

 Ou the moon we can recognize uo twilight surface what- 

 ever. Luok at the earth from the moon, the picture of 

 the "new" earth, when the earth is between the sun and 

 the moon, and there would be scon all around the black 

 disk of the earth this twilight. We, as you know, on the 

 contrary, when wo have a full moan, see 

 the edges sharply defined ; it is only the 

 same circle, no extension on either side by twilight sur- 

 face. That is the second proof of it. "Vet another proof 

 of it. When the moon passes over a star, the star flashes 

 out suddenly ; it there were an atmosphere round the 

 moou, that star would bo seen precisely as our suu when 

 (inking. When he sinks, though ho seems not to pass 

 below the horizon, yet ho is really below it, 

 and a line drawn from the sun to the earth 

 would pass below the horizon. There can be no 

 doubt that if you aro looking at the earth from 

 the moon, you would seo the stars close around the 

 earth, when they were really behind it, they would be 

 raised by refraction of the earth's atmosphere. Now, in 

 the moon's case, we see nothing of that kind. A star, 

 even some telescopic star, is visible in one moment on 

 the moon's edge, and the next it is gone. These aro 

 three convincing proofs that the moon has uo appreci a . 



