Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1909-01-22
Full MOON HoAxEs.
Lies That Have Been Told About the
Queen of the Night.

Queen of the Night.
One Of the most curious facts con-
cerning the goddess of night" is her
intimate connection with liars of vari
Gus ilk The joke of its day and gen.
Grafton was the famous moon hoax"
of the New York Sun, perpetrated in
1885. Sir John Herschel had gone to
the Cape of Good Hope to take astro-
nomical observations. Inspired by too
deep potations or by Nicollet's sneers
at the moonstruck Arago or by the
baleful rays of the queen of night her
self, the idea came to Richard Adams
Locke, a Sun reporter, that mythical
account Of Sir Johns work would
make a first-class STORY" for his pa
per- 1t has been stated that Louis
Gaylord Clark aided the plot, but this
is not probable, and some doubt even
Nicollet's influence and hold that the
whole scheme lay between Locke and
his bottle only.
However that may have been, there
appeared in the Sun in September
long article purporting to be a letter
from Dr.. Andrew Grant to the Edin-
burgh Journal of Science describing
some wonderful discoveries that Her.
schel had made concerning the nature
and inhabitants of the moon. The
astronomer. 1t was said, had been ena-
bled by q remarkable combination of
powerful telescopes and microscopes to
bring the moon so near that the OBJ
server could recognize the character Of
rocks on her surface, perceive the col
or of flowers and detect the character
istics of men and animals that he saw.
These observations proved, Of course,
the existence Of animal life on the orb,
and it is curious that among the types
perceived there were several that Dar-
winism-had 1t been born at that date
might have recognized as missing
links" All the types Of life on the
lunar surface were inferior, proving,
as the writer Of the article grandill-
quently observed, that man may now
tier consciousness of mental suprem-
acy."
The sensation produced by this arti-
Gle was amazing. OF the issues Of the
Sun containing it edition after edition
was called for until 100000 copies had
been sold. The article was also issued
in pamphlet form-both in the United
States and England-and was disposed
OF in countless numbers. Qn the Eng
lish edition all reference to DR.. Grant
and the Journal Of Science was wisely
omitted.) A French translation was
also promptly made by NJ. Nicollet, Of
which over half a million copies were
sold on the continent Of Europe.
1t may be said that a whole world
was taken in by this magnificent joke.
Except a few scientists who perceived
the splendid absurdity of the detailed
descriptions and a few skeptics who
never believed anything on general
principles everybody was hOaxed. There
were rather more doubters among ed
ucated persons abroad than here, as
might have been supposed. though even
there the numbers of believers formed
fine tribute to the ingenuity that
framed the STORY" NJ Arago was
said to have been completely taken in,
whereby the malice that inspired the
translation of the tale by his political
oh NJ f
isfied. This latter gentleman, in fact,
gained a great deal more than he was
at all entitled to-in amusement and
literary credit as we'll as hard cash
from Mr.. Locke's imaginative effort.
Yet other jokes on the moon-and on
the public-have there been in recent
times that are quite worth recording.
About 1862 q Boston paper published
story purporting to be translated
from an article written by German
astronomer. This declared that "a sec
ond satellite to this earth planet" was
to make its appearance within few
years, when every person gazing at
the goddess of night in her resplendent
glory would be tempted to quote a line
from an old song, THE moon is full,
and so am l." for he would "see dou-
ble." The article gave very elaborate
calculations to impart to it's absurdi-
ty a semblance of truth, but all this
ingenuity seems to have been thrown
away. Whether the Boston paper real
ly originated the joke or actually bor-
rowed II from Germany seems not to
have been known, but In any case 1t
fell fiat. At that time our civil war
situation did not give the people time
or inclination to take up hoaXes Of any
sort
Again. in 1874 the New York World
published q dispatch based on some
mythical observations made by a sup
posed member of a British scientific
society, which stated that the frame of
the moon was seen to be gradually
cracking and threatening ere long to
fall into separate fragments. This was
a special cable" sent by corre-
hoax was the paper receiving II.
Again, in 1876 the Chicago Times,
itself a joker of no mean repute, was
completely taken In. This paper pub
lished a cable account of a powerful
reflector that had been erected near
Paris, which when directed toward the
moon had revealed large buildings on
that orb. also gangs of men chained
together engaged in various occupa-
tions. 1t was the theory of the OBJ
server of these new marvels that the
side of the moon turned toward the
earth was used as a penal settlement
because of it's lack of atmospheric
Cincinnati Commercial Tribune.
BLACK FOX PELTS.