52 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



Overlooking the fact tliat it would be far better to term 

 .Einstein a Euclidian antagonist, still it is true that Einstein's 

 assertion that two and two make five has thus-far escaped 

 contradiction ; and anyone who shall effectually disprove and 

 reprove him will certainly knock a home-run in my estimation. 

 But all this is beside the point. 



The important thing about the letter was that it revealed 

 my correspondent as the author of the famous "Jersey Devil" 

 hoax which once had this whole continent by the ears. Dailv 

 for several weeks the newspapers from coast to coast de- 

 voted from one to three pages to weird accounts of the mon- 

 strous terror, these accounts being made up mostly from nar- 

 ratives of eye-witnesses. The seeming incongruity of see- 

 ing the winged monster in California and New Jersey within 

 a period of twenty- four hours was disposed of by tlie late 

 Professor Langley in a column article, in which, computing 

 the wing-spread from the published descriptions, he showed 

 that transcontinental flight within the stated interval was pos- 

 sible. Another scientific authority gave birth to the state- 

 ment that the Jersey Devil furnished triumphant proof of 

 his long-scouted contention that the so-called prehistoric-ani- 

 mals still existed in subterranean caverns from which they 

 might escape through fissures caused by seismic convulsions. 

 For several weeks the night-flying menace w'as seen and heard 

 in various i)arts of the country by many thousands of reput- 

 able persons whose impressions were duly recorded in tlie 

 newspapers, until finally the perpetrator of the hoax cashed 

 it in by capturing and exhibiting the beast ! 



Now. as soon as this man revealed his identity to me by 

 recalling the foregoing facts to my mind, I at once realized 

 the cause of his hostilitv to me and to mv blue dandelion: 

 namely, that, being a professional hoaxer himself, he resented 

 my poaching upon his ])reserves. 



I 



