March 19, 2020 • 24 mins
This offbeat 2015 episode covers a series of 1835 news articles about some utterly mind-blowing discoveries made by Sir John Herschel about the lunar surface. The serial had everything: moon poppies, goat-like unicorns, lunar beavers and even bat people.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, everybody, Here is an episode from our ten episode
playlist that we're calling Offbeat History. Yeah, we're adding this
to our our regular publishing schedule as one kind of
big drop all at the same time on March nineteen.
And that is so that you have maybe have a
little bit of extra entertainment options available to you, particularly
(00:23):
if you are self quarantined or sheltering in place. Welcome
to Stuff you missed in History Class a production of
I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Holly cry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson and who doesn't
(00:45):
love a good hope story? So that there's actually a
news series that we're going to talk about today, and
we have to kind of air quote the work news.
But it's an important landmark in journalism history as well
as cultural history. It also involves the history of mass
media and even sort of a lesson in in gullibility
and kind of crowd mentality. Uh. This is a topic
that The Memory Palace actually did a short episode on
(01:07):
back in and that episode is called The Moon in
the Sun and it's worth a listen. Uh. It is
a brief but very enjoyable So conspiracy theories and cartoons
like tech saveris the Cat that Hated People? Aside, do
you remember that cartoon, Tracy? It was about a cat
who hated people. He lived in New York City, and
so he got himself on a rocket to the Moon
(01:29):
so he could be alone and enjoy it. But of
course the moon was full of crazy things that made
him just as annoyed as Earth and even more so,
so much so that he figured out a way to
get back to Earth. And even though New York did
not treat him while he was very happy. But we
know that in fact, that is fallacious information, and that
the moon is basically pretty empty. There are some things there,
but not crazy horn people as shown in that cartoon
(01:53):
walking around. But in five a New York newspaper printed
a series of stories about amazing discoveries on the lunar landscape.
And we are first going to talk at length about
the incredible descriptions of the amazing things that were allegedly
seen on the lunar surface through a telescope. One thing
(02:15):
I noticed during my research about this news series is
that the articles, and again there are six of them,
and they're very lengthy, kind of get summarized to this
point where it's like two to five sentences about each
one maybe and some don't even cover that, uh, and
you lose a lot of the amazing and sometimes crazy
descriptions of these discoveries. So Tracy and I are actually
(02:37):
going to walk through the text with a lot more description.
We're going to break down a lot more of it. Uh.
And that makes this a two parter because there is
a lot to talk about. Even though we're not covering
everything in that quote historical account, because that would take hours,
it's still going to take quite a bit of time.
And so uh, this first part we're going to talk
(02:58):
a lot about those uh, those entries in the New
York Sun. The second part of this two parter will
wrap up the account as it was published in serial form,
and then we'll talk about kind of the reception these
claims got in sort of the atmosphere of the culture
at the time, and how that sort of enabled and
provided a fertile ground for this hoax to happen. So
(03:19):
before the series began, the small teaser appeared in the
New York Sun, and that was on Friday, August thirty five,
and this little teaser read quote, we have just learned
from an eminent publisher in this city that Sir John
Herschel at the Cape of Good Hope has made some
astronomical discoveries of the most wonderful description by means of
(03:43):
an immense telescope of an entirely new principle. And the
city that was being referenced in that sentence was Edinburgh. Yeah,
that was it was placed again. It was a tiny
little teaser, and it was placed as though it was
put there by the Edinburgh Current. Now, the first entry
in this series appeared in the paper on Tuesday August
(04:04):
uh still five, so a few days later, so that
that little teaser had been allowed to sit for a bit,
and it was titled quote great astronomical discoveries lately made
by Sir John Herschel l l D f R S
at the Cape of Good Hope from the supplement to
the Edinburgh Journal of Science. Sir John Herschel is not
(04:24):
an entirely new name on the podcast. We mentioned him
as the nephew of Caroline Herschel in our episode on
Astronomy's Cinderella. Yeah Well referenced Caroline very briefly towards the
end of the second episode. But this article This first
entry ran on the front page of the New York Sun,
and it took up about seventy five of the front page,
(04:46):
and it opened with this, in this unusual addition to
our journal, we have the happiness of making known to
the British public, and thence to the whole civilized world,
recent discoveries in astronomy which will build an perishable monument
to the age in which we live, and confer upon
the present generation of the human race a proud distinction
(05:07):
through all future time. And again they're placing this as
though it had been These were notes to the Edinburgh
Journal of Science that were then being reprinted in New York.
It goes on to build up the announcement before making it,
and it describes the awe of such a discovery and
how it makes us earth bound creatures feel almost like
we suddenly have supernatural powers. Herschel is described as setting
(05:31):
up his stupendous apparatus, which was his new telescope, which
was quote of vast dimensions and entirely new principle, and
then he has described as pausing for several hours before
looking through it, so that he could collect himself and
prepare for the discoveries that he was about to make. Yeah,
(05:51):
the article assured the reader at this point that Herschel
was right to do so because the things that he
saw in his first hour of observation are incomparable in
the way in which they're they're going to advance human knowledge.
His telescope, the article said, rendered his view of objects
on the lunar surface quote fully equal to that which
(06:11):
the naked eye commands of terrestrial objects at the distance
of a hundred yards. An important thing to note at
this point is that the article title makes it sort
of sound like it was written by Sir John Herschel,
but the actual entry is written as introduced from the
point of view of the newspaper reported to them through
(06:32):
Dr Andrew Grant, and that's who The New York Sun
described as an assistant to the astronomer. The Sun assured
readers that the notes that Grant had shared with the
publication were almost as thorough as thorough as those of
Herschel himself. After the intro, the articles then are framed
as being written by Andrew Grant himself. Uh So, the
(06:55):
rest of the August entry went on to describe in
great detail Herschel telescope. And the reason for this lengthy description,
and I mean it is in great detail according to
this article, is that quote a knowledge of the one
is essential to the credibility of the other. So they
they're kind of setting it up that once readers understand
(07:16):
how amazing this telescope is, then they won't for a
second doubt its ability to see these things that no
one else had previously seen. It claimed that this apparatus
was twenty four ft in diameter or seven point three meters,
and this would have made it six times the size
of the Scout, the telescope that his father, William Herschel
(07:37):
had built. To make some modern comparisons, the Hubble telescope
is fourteen feet or four point three meters in diameter.
The Grand Telescope e Oh Canarius and the Canary Islands,
which is currently the biggest optic telescope on Earth, is
thirty four ft or ten point four meters in diameter.
So so it's basically claiming that this telescope was was huge, huge,
(08:02):
even comparison to other telescopes of today. Oh yeah, and
at this point, remember they're sort of building on this idea,
you know, they're they're referencing William Herschel, who at that
point was a very well known astronomer. The discovery of
uranus had happened in the recent past, and so they're
kind of building uh scientific credibility by referencing him and
(08:24):
talking about how his son is advancing telescopic technology so
much more. Uh. And apparently this new telescope that they're
they were describing, which was reported as weighing nearly seven tons,
also possessed a hydro oxygen microscope, so it combined telescopic
technology with microscopic technology, and this projected the telescopic image
(08:46):
onto a screen of canvas and allowed for clear magnification
of far distant objects. How big and clear did this
article claim it made things? It was reported that this
telescope they're describing would have a magnification of forty two
thousand times. So this was the first of the six
entries in the series. And you will notice that has
(09:07):
said almost nothing about the moon. Yet this is all
set up at this point, and before we get to
the juicy stuff, do you want to pause for a
word from a sponsor. Let's do, because then we can
have lots of juicy stuff close together. Back to the
(09:30):
New York Sun's account, as relayed to them by Dr
Andrew Grant, of the work of Sir John Herschel UH.
The second entry that the newspaper published, which was the
next day, is where things really get cooking, So in
terms of UH descriptions, it really sort of blew things
wide open. It first established the timeline of Herschel having
(09:51):
left London on September four, four transporting when he did this,
his assistance and his new lenses I ship to the
Cape of Good Hope. And it also described the installation
of the telescope in great detail, talking about like how
it was laid out, how they built a foundation for it, etcetera,
further establishing the credibility of the discoveries they were about
(10:14):
to share. The New York Sun reported that the fateful
day on which Herschel turned his telescope to the moon
was January thirty five, at about nine thirty in the evening.
The lunar landscape as seen through this telescope was, apparently
to Herschel, a greenish brown basaltic rock, and he also
(10:37):
saw that it was covered with dark red flowers very
similar to poppies. This, the article claimed, was quote the
first organic production of nature in a foreign world ever
revealed to the eyes of men. He also recorded a
lunar forest which was said to resemble really large ye trees,
and the astronomer observed that as the moon shifted positions,
(11:01):
this was followed by a green plane and then a
forest of fir trees. And after adjusting the telescope's magnification,
Herschel and his assistant realized that they had also found
a body of water with beautiful beaches that were full
of white sand bordered by these green marble rocks. The
water appeared to be blue, just like it does on Earth,
and also seems to experience tides. YEAH talks at length
(11:25):
about where they could see that the tides had hit
the rocks on the edge of one side of this
body of water. So, according to the information that Dr
Grant shared with The New York Sun, the landscape observations
that Dr Herschel and his team were doing went on
for almost two hours, and then after adjusting the lenses
(11:45):
of the telescope once more, there are often references throughout
all of these these UH articles of how they adjusted
lenses and switched things out. UH. Then they observed various
crystalline structure in the landscape, and then a herd of
quadrupeds was spotted. So this herd of creatures was reported
(12:06):
to be in the shade of the forest, and the
animals appeared to be a lot like small bison, although
very much smaller than any bison on Earth. These creatures
had a lot of characteristics that were similar to terrestrial bison.
There were quote semicircular horns, the hump on its shoulders,
and the depth of its dew lap, and the length
(12:28):
of its shaggy hair. He also described the species is
having quote a remarkable fleshy appendage over the eyes which
spanned across the head from ear to ear. So, according
to this account, Herschel is said to have guessed that
this flap covering the eyes would shield the animal from
the extreme variations in light and darkness that the Moon
(12:50):
would experience. Next in his Moon's Wildlife Discoveries were creatures
that the article suspects would be classified as monsters on Earth.
These were small, goat sized species that were the color
of quote bluish lead. Males had single horns and beards,
and female had neither horns nor beards, but did have
(13:11):
longer tails than the males did. They frolicked around like antelopes,
and they were very social creatures and their antics, according
to this report, were quite delightful. Yeah. It goes on
at length about how they were jumping around and playing
with each other, and how all of the astronomers observing
this just were charmed to pieces. They were charmed by
(13:32):
the delightful monsters, by the delightful goat unicorn creatures that
were blue. Uh. There were also water birds aspied through
this telescope, including pelicans and cranes being the most common. Uh.
These birds were discovered along a branching river, and the
astronomers watched this river for some time, hoping to get
(13:54):
their eyes on what they suspected might be lunar fish,
but they were not rewarded. But they did deduce that
the fish must have been there because the birds were
seen dunking their heads in the water, seemingly as a
food gathering activity. At this point in the observations, the
lunar atmosphere, not Earth's atmosphere, became too cloudy for them
to be able to see any further, and so the
(14:16):
observers decided to take a break. They were also pretty
tired by that point. So that ended the second installment
of the New York Suns series with kind of a cliffhanger. Yeah,
at this point they've introduced crazy animal species that have
been seen on the Moon. Uh, but there is so
much more to come. So on Thursday, August thirty five,
(14:39):
the third installment of the Moon Discovery series was published.
The cloudy conditions that had halted their viewings for a
couple of nights cleared up on January, and at that
point both the Moon's atmosphere and the Earth's were clear
quote one of pearly purity and loveliness, and as the
position of the Moon relative of to to the telescope's location
(15:01):
was getting ready to shift, Dr Grant wrote that Dr
Herschel wanted to focus the entirety of the evening on
January to just a few specific spots before that shift happened. Uh.
There is, uh at this point in the narrative additional
topographical descriptions of the Moon's landscape, and these go on
and on for quite some length to detail there are mountains,
(15:25):
Their mountains made of crystal. They're active and inactive volcanoes.
There are incredibly fertile areas at one point. This thirtain
installment describes it as quote fertile to excess in one passage,
so it goes on a lot about the landscape. Additional
animals were identified as being different from the ones that
(15:46):
had been sited on earlier viewings, including larger versions of
those bison creatures, as well as numerous flocks of red
and white birds. Herschel and his team, according to this article,
classified already eight different species of lunar forest trees that night,
and twice that number of plants in the relatively small
(16:07):
area where they were concentrating their observations. They also cataloged
nine mammal species and five over paris species. The mammals
included beasts that look like little reindeer, as well as
elk and moose and horned bears, and one that looked
like a biped beaver, although apparently the moon beavers had
(16:27):
no tails. So the moon beaver gets talked about a lot.
It was very exciting, and it also, again being biped,
carried its young cradled in its arms the same way
that a human would as it was tootling around on
its hind legs. And these lunar beavers also constructed huts
rather than dams, so they're a little more archaeological or
(16:48):
um architecturally advanced. And this construction was described as quote
better and higher than those of many tribes of human savages.
And from the appearance of smoke nearly all of them,
there is no doubt of its being acquainted with the
use of fire. So, if if you do have the opportunity,
which I encourage you to take, to listen to the
(17:09):
Memory Palace episode about this, one of my favorite parts
is about these beavers. When you're reading the articles, the
beaver part is just hilarious to me because there's such
excitement over these biped beavers that know how to use fire.
So south of where these beaver type animals were seen
(17:29):
was a dense forest where the only animal scene was
this large stork like bird. Not far from the thickly
wooded area was the largest lake that was visible, which
was estimated to be a hundred and ninety two d
and sixty six miles or three nineteen by four kilometers.
The lake reportedly contained volcanic islands. And before we talk
(17:54):
about a little bit of amazing flora seen on some
of these islands in this lake. Do you want to
have a word from a sponsors. Sure? Back to these
amazing volcanic islands discovered on the Moon. One of the
(18:14):
really fabulous and exciting discoveries there was that there were
moon palm trees. These were visually almost identical to earth
palm trees, except that they blossomed with bright red flowers,
and they did not appear to bear fruits like date
or coconuts. However, in terms of fruit bearing trees, there
(18:36):
was a melon tree, and there were herds of miniature
zebras and birds that the team thought were pheasants. The
shores of this massive body of water were also filled
with shellfish. Uh. And as this third entry in the
series winds down, there is an attempt to describe the
crystal line vista that's surrounding these waters, although the curvature
(18:58):
of the moon and the earth rotation allows for no
visibility that they can identify the end of this particular
segment of landscape. So you may be thinking that the
wonders described up until this point we're really pretty amazing.
But the fourth installment that was printed in the New
York Sun is even more incredible. This one appeared on Friday,
(19:20):
August and a lot of people regarded as the most
sensational of the six parts of this cereal. So again
it starts as previous entries, with a lengthy description of
the latest landscape that they're observing, which featured bright red
perpendicular mountains and long veins of what the team concluded
(19:42):
were virgin gold. Uh. They also describe another quadruped species,
and these ones were observed to be white sheeplike beasts
but with long necks, and the body is described almost
dear like in shape, but with longer front legs. So
as I was trying and visualize this, I was like,
it's a sheep, dear giraffe. Um. But then another group
(20:06):
of animals is described that apparently looked exactly like sheep,
exactly like sheep, no no visible variation at all, uh,
and they were so obviously sheep, according to Dr Grant's account,
that it made all of the astronomers laugh. And then
Dr Grant's account drops the real bomb. A holy new
creature appeared in the telescope's view, and several groups of
(20:29):
winged creatures descended from a cliff base to land on
an open plane. Sir John Herschel is quoted in the
article is saying, quote, now, gentleman, my theories against your proofs,
which you have often found a pretty even bit. We
have here something worth looking at. I was confident that
if we ever found beings in human shape, it would
(20:49):
be in this longitude, and that they would be provided
by their creator with some extraordinary powers of locomotion. First
exchange for my number D. And so when he asked
for that, exchange for number D that refers to a
lens that Herschel wanted to use. Two more carefully examine
the scene before him. So adjustments were quickly made to
(21:12):
the telescope and everything was refocused, and the team then
viewed three groups of these beings walking erect and these
new creatures were indeed similar to humans. After more focusing
and more adjustments, these creatures were brought into clear focus
and they appeared to be about four ft or one
point two meters tall. They had copper colored fur all
(21:33):
over their bodies except for on their faces, and their
wings were like bat wings. Their faces were described as
quote a slight improvement upon that of the large orangutan.
It's actually spelled in this as orangutang which delights me. Uh.
(21:53):
And they're described as seeming more intelligent than the earth primate,
the orangutan. Yeah. Uh. These bat people also had beards
and darker hair on their heads than on the rest
of their bodies. One of Herschel's assistants is quoted in
Grant's account as saying, quote, they would look as well
on a parade ground as some of the old Cockney militia.
(22:16):
Herschel and his team observed these beings and what appeared
to be impassioned conversation, just gesturing to one another, just
like human beings would. This species was named by Herschel
as Vespertilio Homo man bat, and the valley where they
lived was named the Ruby Colisseum. The New York's son
(22:38):
omitted some of the passages from the notes at the
behest of Dr Grant, who apparently felt like those elements
were best shared by Sir Herschel himself. The Sun indicated
that the omitted material does quote contain facts which would
be wholly incredible to readers who do not carefully examine
the principles and capacity of the instrument with which these
(22:59):
mar of a list discoveries have been made. Uh. The
newspaper also indicates that sort of there editorial opinion that
when the entirety of this work is published by Herschel,
it is going to be quote at once the most
sublime in science and the most intense and general interest
that ever issued from the press. And that is where
(23:22):
we now, will cliffhang you. The second episode of this
two parter is going to finish off Dr Grant's accounts
of what Herschel observed on the Moon, and then we'll
talk about how all of this was received by the
public and by other newspapers and even by Sir John
Herschel himself. Yeah, so there's plenty more, although we've given
you probably the juiciest of the actual um fauna discoveries.
(23:53):
Thank you so much for joining us today for this classic.
If you have heard any kind of email address or
maybe a Facebook you are l during the course of
the episode, that might be obsolete. It might be doubly
obsolete because we have changed our email address again. You
can now reach us at History Podcasts at I heart
radio dot com, and we're all over social media at
missed in History, and you can subscribe to our show
(24:15):
on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, the I heart Radio app
and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Stuffy miss in
History Class is a production of I heart Radio. For
more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, everybody, Here is an episode from our ten episode
playlist that we're calling Offbeat History. Yeah, we're adding this
to our our regular publishing schedule as one kind of
big drop all at the same time on March nineteen.
And that is so that you have maybe have a
little bit of extra entertainment options available to you, particularly
(00:23):
if you are self quarantined or sheltering in place. Welcome
to Stuff you missed in History Class a production of
I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Holly cry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson and who doesn't
(00:45):
love a good hope story? So that there's actually a
news series that we're going to talk about today, and
we have to kind of air quote the work news.
But it's an important landmark in journalism history as well
as cultural history. It also involves the history of mass
media and even sort of a lesson in in gullibility
and kind of crowd mentality. Uh. This is a topic
that The Memory Palace actually did a short episode on
(01:07):
back in and that episode is called The Moon in
the Sun and it's worth a listen. Uh. It is
a brief but very enjoyable So conspiracy theories and cartoons
like tech saveris the Cat that Hated People? Aside, do
you remember that cartoon, Tracy? It was about a cat
who hated people. He lived in New York City, and
so he got himself on a rocket to the Moon
(01:29):
so he could be alone and enjoy it. But of
course the moon was full of crazy things that made
him just as annoyed as Earth and even more so,
so much so that he figured out a way to
get back to Earth. And even though New York did
not treat him while he was very happy. But we
know that in fact, that is fallacious information, and that
the moon is basically pretty empty. There are some things there,
but not crazy horn people as shown in that cartoon
(01:53):
walking around. But in five a New York newspaper printed
a series of stories about amazing discoveries on the lunar landscape.
And we are first going to talk at length about
the incredible descriptions of the amazing things that were allegedly
seen on the lunar surface through a telescope. One thing
(02:15):
I noticed during my research about this news series is
that the articles, and again there are six of them,
and they're very lengthy, kind of get summarized to this
point where it's like two to five sentences about each
one maybe and some don't even cover that, uh, and
you lose a lot of the amazing and sometimes crazy
descriptions of these discoveries. So Tracy and I are actually
(02:37):
going to walk through the text with a lot more description.
We're going to break down a lot more of it. Uh.
And that makes this a two parter because there is
a lot to talk about. Even though we're not covering
everything in that quote historical account, because that would take hours,
it's still going to take quite a bit of time.
And so uh, this first part we're going to talk
(02:58):
a lot about those uh, those entries in the New
York Sun. The second part of this two parter will
wrap up the account as it was published in serial form,
and then we'll talk about kind of the reception these
claims got in sort of the atmosphere of the culture
at the time, and how that sort of enabled and
provided a fertile ground for this hoax to happen. So
(03:19):
before the series began, the small teaser appeared in the
New York Sun, and that was on Friday, August thirty five,
and this little teaser read quote, we have just learned
from an eminent publisher in this city that Sir John
Herschel at the Cape of Good Hope has made some
astronomical discoveries of the most wonderful description by means of
(03:43):
an immense telescope of an entirely new principle. And the
city that was being referenced in that sentence was Edinburgh. Yeah,
that was it was placed again. It was a tiny
little teaser, and it was placed as though it was
put there by the Edinburgh Current. Now, the first entry
in this series appeared in the paper on Tuesday August
(04:04):
uh still five, so a few days later, so that
that little teaser had been allowed to sit for a bit,
and it was titled quote great astronomical discoveries lately made
by Sir John Herschel l l D f R S
at the Cape of Good Hope from the supplement to
the Edinburgh Journal of Science. Sir John Herschel is not
(04:24):
an entirely new name on the podcast. We mentioned him
as the nephew of Caroline Herschel in our episode on
Astronomy's Cinderella. Yeah Well referenced Caroline very briefly towards the
end of the second episode. But this article This first
entry ran on the front page of the New York Sun,
and it took up about seventy five of the front page,
(04:46):
and it opened with this, in this unusual addition to
our journal, we have the happiness of making known to
the British public, and thence to the whole civilized world,
recent discoveries in astronomy which will build an perishable monument
to the age in which we live, and confer upon
the present generation of the human race a proud distinction
(05:07):
through all future time. And again they're placing this as
though it had been These were notes to the Edinburgh
Journal of Science that were then being reprinted in New York.
It goes on to build up the announcement before making it,
and it describes the awe of such a discovery and
how it makes us earth bound creatures feel almost like
we suddenly have supernatural powers. Herschel is described as setting
(05:31):
up his stupendous apparatus, which was his new telescope, which
was quote of vast dimensions and entirely new principle, and
then he has described as pausing for several hours before
looking through it, so that he could collect himself and
prepare for the discoveries that he was about to make. Yeah,
(05:51):
the article assured the reader at this point that Herschel
was right to do so because the things that he
saw in his first hour of observation are incomparable in
the way in which they're they're going to advance human knowledge.
His telescope, the article said, rendered his view of objects
on the lunar surface quote fully equal to that which
(06:11):
the naked eye commands of terrestrial objects at the distance
of a hundred yards. An important thing to note at
this point is that the article title makes it sort
of sound like it was written by Sir John Herschel,
but the actual entry is written as introduced from the
point of view of the newspaper reported to them through
(06:32):
Dr Andrew Grant, and that's who The New York Sun
described as an assistant to the astronomer. The Sun assured
readers that the notes that Grant had shared with the
publication were almost as thorough as thorough as those of
Herschel himself. After the intro, the articles then are framed
as being written by Andrew Grant himself. Uh So, the
(06:55):
rest of the August entry went on to describe in
great detail Herschel telescope. And the reason for this lengthy description,
and I mean it is in great detail according to
this article, is that quote a knowledge of the one
is essential to the credibility of the other. So they
they're kind of setting it up that once readers understand
(07:16):
how amazing this telescope is, then they won't for a
second doubt its ability to see these things that no
one else had previously seen. It claimed that this apparatus
was twenty four ft in diameter or seven point three meters,
and this would have made it six times the size
of the Scout, the telescope that his father, William Herschel
(07:37):
had built. To make some modern comparisons, the Hubble telescope
is fourteen feet or four point three meters in diameter.
The Grand Telescope e Oh Canarius and the Canary Islands,
which is currently the biggest optic telescope on Earth, is
thirty four ft or ten point four meters in diameter.
So so it's basically claiming that this telescope was was huge, huge,
(08:02):
even comparison to other telescopes of today. Oh yeah, and
at this point, remember they're sort of building on this idea,
you know, they're they're referencing William Herschel, who at that
point was a very well known astronomer. The discovery of
uranus had happened in the recent past, and so they're
kind of building uh scientific credibility by referencing him and
(08:24):
talking about how his son is advancing telescopic technology so
much more. Uh. And apparently this new telescope that they're
they were describing, which was reported as weighing nearly seven tons,
also possessed a hydro oxygen microscope, so it combined telescopic
technology with microscopic technology, and this projected the telescopic image
(08:46):
onto a screen of canvas and allowed for clear magnification
of far distant objects. How big and clear did this
article claim it made things? It was reported that this
telescope they're describing would have a magnification of forty two
thousand times. So this was the first of the six
entries in the series. And you will notice that has
(09:07):
said almost nothing about the moon. Yet this is all
set up at this point, and before we get to
the juicy stuff, do you want to pause for a
word from a sponsor. Let's do, because then we can
have lots of juicy stuff close together. Back to the
(09:30):
New York Sun's account, as relayed to them by Dr
Andrew Grant, of the work of Sir John Herschel UH.
The second entry that the newspaper published, which was the
next day, is where things really get cooking, So in
terms of UH descriptions, it really sort of blew things
wide open. It first established the timeline of Herschel having
(09:51):
left London on September four, four transporting when he did this,
his assistance and his new lenses I ship to the
Cape of Good Hope. And it also described the installation
of the telescope in great detail, talking about like how
it was laid out, how they built a foundation for it, etcetera,
further establishing the credibility of the discoveries they were about
(10:14):
to share. The New York Sun reported that the fateful
day on which Herschel turned his telescope to the moon
was January thirty five, at about nine thirty in the evening.
The lunar landscape as seen through this telescope was, apparently
to Herschel, a greenish brown basaltic rock, and he also
(10:37):
saw that it was covered with dark red flowers very
similar to poppies. This, the article claimed, was quote the
first organic production of nature in a foreign world ever
revealed to the eyes of men. He also recorded a
lunar forest which was said to resemble really large ye trees,
and the astronomer observed that as the moon shifted positions,
(11:01):
this was followed by a green plane and then a
forest of fir trees. And after adjusting the telescope's magnification,
Herschel and his assistant realized that they had also found
a body of water with beautiful beaches that were full
of white sand bordered by these green marble rocks. The
water appeared to be blue, just like it does on Earth,
and also seems to experience tides. YEAH talks at length
(11:25):
about where they could see that the tides had hit
the rocks on the edge of one side of this
body of water. So, according to the information that Dr
Grant shared with The New York Sun, the landscape observations
that Dr Herschel and his team were doing went on
for almost two hours, and then after adjusting the lenses
(11:45):
of the telescope once more, there are often references throughout
all of these these UH articles of how they adjusted
lenses and switched things out. UH. Then they observed various
crystalline structure in the landscape, and then a herd of
quadrupeds was spotted. So this herd of creatures was reported
(12:06):
to be in the shade of the forest, and the
animals appeared to be a lot like small bison, although
very much smaller than any bison on Earth. These creatures
had a lot of characteristics that were similar to terrestrial bison.
There were quote semicircular horns, the hump on its shoulders,
and the depth of its dew lap, and the length
(12:28):
of its shaggy hair. He also described the species is
having quote a remarkable fleshy appendage over the eyes which
spanned across the head from ear to ear. So, according
to this account, Herschel is said to have guessed that
this flap covering the eyes would shield the animal from
the extreme variations in light and darkness that the Moon
(12:50):
would experience. Next in his Moon's Wildlife Discoveries were creatures
that the article suspects would be classified as monsters on Earth.
These were small, goat sized species that were the color
of quote bluish lead. Males had single horns and beards,
and female had neither horns nor beards, but did have
(13:11):
longer tails than the males did. They frolicked around like antelopes,
and they were very social creatures and their antics, according
to this report, were quite delightful. Yeah. It goes on
at length about how they were jumping around and playing
with each other, and how all of the astronomers observing
this just were charmed to pieces. They were charmed by
(13:32):
the delightful monsters, by the delightful goat unicorn creatures that
were blue. Uh. There were also water birds aspied through
this telescope, including pelicans and cranes being the most common. Uh.
These birds were discovered along a branching river, and the
astronomers watched this river for some time, hoping to get
(13:54):
their eyes on what they suspected might be lunar fish,
but they were not rewarded. But they did deduce that
the fish must have been there because the birds were
seen dunking their heads in the water, seemingly as a
food gathering activity. At this point in the observations, the
lunar atmosphere, not Earth's atmosphere, became too cloudy for them
to be able to see any further, and so the
(14:16):
observers decided to take a break. They were also pretty
tired by that point. So that ended the second installment
of the New York Suns series with kind of a cliffhanger. Yeah,
at this point they've introduced crazy animal species that have
been seen on the Moon. Uh, but there is so
much more to come. So on Thursday, August thirty five,
(14:39):
the third installment of the Moon Discovery series was published.
The cloudy conditions that had halted their viewings for a
couple of nights cleared up on January, and at that
point both the Moon's atmosphere and the Earth's were clear
quote one of pearly purity and loveliness, and as the
position of the Moon relative of to to the telescope's location
(15:01):
was getting ready to shift, Dr Grant wrote that Dr
Herschel wanted to focus the entirety of the evening on
January to just a few specific spots before that shift happened. Uh.
There is, uh at this point in the narrative additional
topographical descriptions of the Moon's landscape, and these go on
and on for quite some length to detail there are mountains,
(15:25):
Their mountains made of crystal. They're active and inactive volcanoes.
There are incredibly fertile areas at one point. This thirtain
installment describes it as quote fertile to excess in one passage,
so it goes on a lot about the landscape. Additional
animals were identified as being different from the ones that
(15:46):
had been sited on earlier viewings, including larger versions of
those bison creatures, as well as numerous flocks of red
and white birds. Herschel and his team, according to this article,
classified already eight different species of lunar forest trees that night,
and twice that number of plants in the relatively small
(16:07):
area where they were concentrating their observations. They also cataloged
nine mammal species and five over paris species. The mammals
included beasts that look like little reindeer, as well as
elk and moose and horned bears, and one that looked
like a biped beaver, although apparently the moon beavers had
(16:27):
no tails. So the moon beaver gets talked about a lot.
It was very exciting, and it also, again being biped,
carried its young cradled in its arms the same way
that a human would as it was tootling around on
its hind legs. And these lunar beavers also constructed huts
rather than dams, so they're a little more archaeological or
(16:48):
um architecturally advanced. And this construction was described as quote
better and higher than those of many tribes of human savages.
And from the appearance of smoke nearly all of them,
there is no doubt of its being acquainted with the
use of fire. So, if if you do have the opportunity,
which I encourage you to take, to listen to the
(17:09):
Memory Palace episode about this, one of my favorite parts
is about these beavers. When you're reading the articles, the
beaver part is just hilarious to me because there's such
excitement over these biped beavers that know how to use fire.
So south of where these beaver type animals were seen
(17:29):
was a dense forest where the only animal scene was
this large stork like bird. Not far from the thickly
wooded area was the largest lake that was visible, which
was estimated to be a hundred and ninety two d
and sixty six miles or three nineteen by four kilometers.
The lake reportedly contained volcanic islands. And before we talk
(17:54):
about a little bit of amazing flora seen on some
of these islands in this lake. Do you want to
have a word from a sponsors. Sure? Back to these
amazing volcanic islands discovered on the Moon. One of the
(18:14):
really fabulous and exciting discoveries there was that there were
moon palm trees. These were visually almost identical to earth
palm trees, except that they blossomed with bright red flowers,
and they did not appear to bear fruits like date
or coconuts. However, in terms of fruit bearing trees, there
(18:36):
was a melon tree, and there were herds of miniature
zebras and birds that the team thought were pheasants. The
shores of this massive body of water were also filled
with shellfish. Uh. And as this third entry in the
series winds down, there is an attempt to describe the
crystal line vista that's surrounding these waters, although the curvature
(18:58):
of the moon and the earth rotation allows for no
visibility that they can identify the end of this particular
segment of landscape. So you may be thinking that the
wonders described up until this point we're really pretty amazing.
But the fourth installment that was printed in the New
York Sun is even more incredible. This one appeared on Friday,
(19:20):
August and a lot of people regarded as the most
sensational of the six parts of this cereal. So again
it starts as previous entries, with a lengthy description of
the latest landscape that they're observing, which featured bright red
perpendicular mountains and long veins of what the team concluded
(19:42):
were virgin gold. Uh. They also describe another quadruped species,
and these ones were observed to be white sheeplike beasts
but with long necks, and the body is described almost
dear like in shape, but with longer front legs. So
as I was trying and visualize this, I was like,
it's a sheep, dear giraffe. Um. But then another group
(20:06):
of animals is described that apparently looked exactly like sheep,
exactly like sheep, no no visible variation at all, uh,
and they were so obviously sheep, according to Dr Grant's account,
that it made all of the astronomers laugh. And then
Dr Grant's account drops the real bomb. A holy new
creature appeared in the telescope's view, and several groups of
(20:29):
winged creatures descended from a cliff base to land on
an open plane. Sir John Herschel is quoted in the
article is saying, quote, now, gentleman, my theories against your proofs,
which you have often found a pretty even bit. We
have here something worth looking at. I was confident that
if we ever found beings in human shape, it would
(20:49):
be in this longitude, and that they would be provided
by their creator with some extraordinary powers of locomotion. First
exchange for my number D. And so when he asked
for that, exchange for number D that refers to a
lens that Herschel wanted to use. Two more carefully examine
the scene before him. So adjustments were quickly made to
(21:12):
the telescope and everything was refocused, and the team then
viewed three groups of these beings walking erect and these
new creatures were indeed similar to humans. After more focusing
and more adjustments, these creatures were brought into clear focus
and they appeared to be about four ft or one
point two meters tall. They had copper colored fur all
(21:33):
over their bodies except for on their faces, and their
wings were like bat wings. Their faces were described as
quote a slight improvement upon that of the large orangutan.
It's actually spelled in this as orangutang which delights me. Uh.
(21:53):
And they're described as seeming more intelligent than the earth primate,
the orangutan. Yeah. Uh. These bat people also had beards
and darker hair on their heads than on the rest
of their bodies. One of Herschel's assistants is quoted in
Grant's account as saying, quote, they would look as well
on a parade ground as some of the old Cockney militia.
(22:16):
Herschel and his team observed these beings and what appeared
to be impassioned conversation, just gesturing to one another, just
like human beings would. This species was named by Herschel
as Vespertilio Homo man bat, and the valley where they
lived was named the Ruby Colisseum. The New York's son
(22:38):
omitted some of the passages from the notes at the
behest of Dr Grant, who apparently felt like those elements
were best shared by Sir Herschel himself. The Sun indicated
that the omitted material does quote contain facts which would
be wholly incredible to readers who do not carefully examine
the principles and capacity of the instrument with which these
(22:59):
mar of a list discoveries have been made. Uh. The
newspaper also indicates that sort of there editorial opinion that
when the entirety of this work is published by Herschel,
it is going to be quote at once the most
sublime in science and the most intense and general interest
that ever issued from the press. And that is where
(23:22):
we now, will cliffhang you. The second episode of this
two parter is going to finish off Dr Grant's accounts
of what Herschel observed on the Moon, and then we'll
talk about how all of this was received by the
public and by other newspapers and even by Sir John
Herschel himself. Yeah, so there's plenty more, although we've given
you probably the juiciest of the actual um fauna discoveries.
(23:53):
Thank you so much for joining us today for this classic.
If you have heard any kind of email address or
maybe a Facebook you are l during the course of
the episode, that might be obsolete. It might be doubly
obsolete because we have changed our email address again. You
can now reach us at History Podcasts at I heart
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missed in History, and you can subscribe to our show
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