Evening star., 1938-02-05

The grimacing face of the man in the
moon so intrigued the imagination OF
18th century English bishop, con-
temporary OF Sir Isaac Newton. that he
composed one Of the earliest known tan
tastes of moon voyage.
COPY Of the curious old book-lhe
Man lnsthe Moon, a Discourse OF Noy-
age Thither' by Bishop Francis Good
win has just been secured by the Aero
nautics Division Of the Library of Con-
gress as curious relic of the days when
mems thoughts first were seriously
turned to the possibilities Of flight. Very
few copies now are extant.
Concerning such a voyage Itself the
good bishop had no very original Ideas.
He imagined an engine" drawn by pc
cuiar species of swans which were able
to fly above the pull of the earths graV-
ity and then sail gently to the surface OF
the satellite. On the way the chief dam
ger encountered consisted of huge red
clouds of locusts coming down to lnfest
the earth. The sudden appearances OF
these insects in vast numbers always had
been considered visltatlons from another
planet.
Although Bishop Goodwin had some
conception of gravity he had little idea
of relative forces and distances, nor OF
the composition of the atmosphere.
Once hundred miles or SO above the
earth his voyager found the climate de-
lightful because there no longer was any
reflection from the globe to make it hot
nor any moisture to make it cold. The
clouds were all below him and the sky
above filled with 'whitish stars like the
moon in daytime. They appeared ten
times bigger than on earth.
Through stormleSS, WindleSs region
the swan-draWn engine continued for II
days, the moon ever growing larger III
front of the voyager
Approaching the moon in his swan
drawn engine" the voyager perceived
that this world was for the greatest part
covered with a huge. mighty sea, those
parts only being dry land which are to
us somewhat darker than the rest of her
body-what country people call the Man
in the Moon. That part which shines so
bright is another ocean, besprinkled with
islands, SO that the splendor which ap-
gears to us at night is but the rejecting
of SunbeamS returning to us out of water
as from looking glass"
He landed on top Of high mountain.
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yea thirty times greater than ours. The
trees were thrice as high and about five
times broader and thicker. So were their
herbs, birds and beasts. though I cannot
well compare them to ours because
found not any kind of bird or beast there
which any way resembled ours, except
swallows, nightingales, cucooS woOdcockS
and bats, besides swans such as had
brought me thither."
Soon he was surrounded "by strange
sort of people both in features. manners
and apparel. Their statures were gen.
orally twice as high as ours. Their
color was not black. white, yellow, red
nor blue. nor any color composed OF these.
1t was color never seen in our earthly
world and SO impossible to be described
OF conceived by us. 1t is hard to make
man born blind understand the diff
ference between green and blue. So
neither can decypher this moon color.
I can say only it was the most glorious
and delightful that could be imagined"
The voyager found, OF course. that the
moon was a paradise. There was no
sickness and everybody lived thousand
years or. so. There was no crime. The
country was so rich that everybody lived
in luxury. The inhabitants of the moon
told him that their ancestors had come
originally from the earth, in manner
which they had forgotten. Not all the
moon men were born perfect, 'but those
with a tendency to 60 wrong were de-
tected in childhood and sent back to
earth. There they were set down on top
of high mountain in the north OF
America" and left to shift for them
selves.
Doubtless they turned out to be bad