Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1879 edition. Excerpt: ...years ago, and purported to be a series of discoveries made in the moon by Sir John Herschel, during his residence at the Cape of Good Hope. It is a well known fact among astronomers that, with a given-sized object-glass, the power of the telescope is limited by the degree to which the image in the focus of the glass can be magnified; the light remaining the same, the more the size of the image is increased the darker it becomes. This writer alleged that by a great improvement in the telescope the image could be illuminated by artificial light. By the application of this idea and using an eye-glass of great magnifying power, Sir John Herschel observed moving animals on the moon so distinctly that their forms were actually discovered. Even learned professors in colleges were duped, failing to detect the scientific absurdity of illuminating a shadow in order that it might be more highly magnified. A young law student in the city of Washington pretended that he had discovered a series of Runic inscriptions on the face of a rock in the Potomac River, and the same was given to the journals for publication. The various ethnological journals copied it as the truth and by the Scandinavian antiquarians it was hailed as another evidence that the Northmen had early explored this country. A story was published in Europe concerning a remarkable vault, discovered in the Palisades of the Hudson, that contained many statues and inscriptions, all of which only existed in the mind of the writer. During the year 1869 a Kansas paper published an account of some imaginary professor having discovered a tumulus near Evanstown, Shelby County, Utah, in which was a vault eight feet long, three wide and four deep. In the cavity was found a skeleton, which...
