The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-12-10
THE GREAT MOON HOAX.
STORY OF ONE OF THE MOST NOTED
NEWSPAPER INPOSTUREs.

From the philadelphia Bulletin.
The November meteors. or shooting
stars" of this year have been looked for
with unusual interest because, according
to the astronomers, they betoken the great
shower which recurs, believe, about ev-
cry thirty-seven years, and which will be
due at this time two years hence. Sixty-two
years ago last night it presented perhaps
the most sublime sight that human eyes in
this country have even gazed upon. Ger
tainly there has never been a spectacle
more supernatural and more terrifying to
Americans, unless it was the memorable
Dark Day" in New England, when the
shadows of night settled upon the land in
the midst of day and when the pious were
sure than the end of the world was come.
There are still old men among us who
have recollection of the terror which the
magnificent blaze in the heavens in the
| last hours of that November night of 1888
inspired; how it gave rise among the null
titude to thoughts of war and woe and the
coming of the day of Judgment, and how
the Millerites pointed to it as the divine
admonition of the impending advent of the
King of Kings. 1t is true that compare
lively few persons saw the phenomenon for
it took place, or was visible only about an
hour before daybreak or when most of the
inhabitants We're still asleep. But those
| that were awake, or were awakened, were
numerous enough in their reports of what
they had seen to cause alarm among the
! superstitious throughout the city and to
excite thoughts of religion among the
timid
Those who remember the night tell how
| at 4:30 in the morning, when the sky was
| clear and serene, there suddenly appeared
| a stream of shooting stars" going in the
| direction of the northwest They moved
| with incredible velocity and brilliancy.
| Some observers compared them in density
| to the flakes of snow or the drops of rain
in storm. They were Of all sizes and
various shapes-some of them mere parti-
| Giles innumerable and others enormous
balls of fire, with long trains darting like
lightning through the heavens. There
was one apparently as big and brilliant as
| the moon. The light was so great that
| many persons opened windows, supposing
that conhagration was raging in the city.
| Others were so scared that they could not
! move; others fell upon their knees pray
| ing for mercy for their SOULS and it was
said that not a few never confessed the
| fear that came over them lest the earth
| was about to be consumed in a rain of
! fire.
! The number of these meteors as esti-
| mated by scientists, was many thousands
| within about fifty minutes time, but to
! the ordinary eye they presented the aspect
| of a storm of flames rushing through the
| sky. Occasionally a meteor would SEEM
| ingly explode or scatter, and from it would
| fall millions of fiery particles that would
| pass off like a shower of golden dust. In
| every portion of the sky the blaze for
nearly a half hour was almost incessant.
Some of the early risers have told how
| they could see the recorded time distinct
! ly on their clocks or how they could have
read newspapers in the light of the wild
| invasion of the Shooting stars" and It
| was not until toward daylight that the
last of them had disappeared in space.
Perhaps not one in fifty of the 275000 pop
| ulation of Philadelphia at that time saw
this extraordinary display 1t was visible
| in many cities of the union, and, excepting
| the philosophers, most of those who wit
| messed it remembered it as the most i'm
pressive hour of terror in their lives
| These phenomena had much effect on
| persons of vivid imagination, and in con-
| nection with the celebrated discoveries
which the second Herschel had just be-
gun to make when he took his great re-
| Electors TO the Cape of Good Hope, arous-
| had before been known in this country.
| Indeed after the shower of the meteors,
the public mind was disposed to be cred
ulous of wonderful stories of stellar and
planetary revelations. 1t had been ru-
| mored that Herschel, in his far-off Afri-
| can expedition, was discovering things
| even more startling than the shower of
| stars. The readers of the day were APP
| parently in a frame of mind not unlike
that in which Andree and his balloon
| have been this year regarded and of Her
| schel and his telescope they were prepar-
| ed to believe almost anything in his gaug
| ing of the heavens. Thus it was that the
opportunity offered itself to Richard Ad-
| ans Locke to pass off the most remarka-
BILE piece of fiction as scientific fact that
| has ever been printed in the American
| press The attempt the other day in the
! New York press to represent an apocry-
| phaI report of Pontus Pilates action in
| the crucifxion of Christ as an official doc
| ument from the hand of Pontus himself
was stupid and feeble by the side of the
| fertile fancy which conceived the great
moon hoax of 1885.
| The New York Sun had Just made its
advent in the penny press, and Locke an
| Fnglishman probably not over IS years
| of age, who had been employed as a re-
| porter in New York, had a hand in the
editorship of the new paper. He was an
| unpretentious but more than ordinarily
|
men then went. He had not been long
| with the Sun when it startled New York
and in a few days, the whole country
with what on its face was an astonishing
series of foreign reprint" Under the
head of Discoveries in the Moon" was
long and circumstantial account of the
uses to which Herschel was putting his
new telescope, the stars he was discover
ing nightly and the close and accurate
| gaze with which he could reach up to and
into the face of the moon. The scenery
of the planet was described with minute
detail the forests, the mountains, the
precipces, the waters, the beasts and also
the inhabitants.
Even the daily life of the lunar popula-
ton was pictured in the text which was
written with terms sufficiently scientific to
give it the air Of precision and truth, or,
at least of FEASIBILITY 1t was declared
that the telescope had brought the moon
within eight miles vision from the earth,
and that men resem bling bats i'm human
form could be seen plainly. What Flam-
marion. for example, has written in re-
cent years i'm popular way about the ge-
ography and people of Mars, Locke por-
| fravad of the moon as the discoveries ra-