lity, if life were on it, of articulate
speech, of music, even of sound. Sometimes a greenish tint was seen
upon its surface, which might have been taken for vegetation, but it was
thought not improbably to be a reflection from the vast forests of South
America. The ancients had a fancy, some of them, that the face of the
moon was a mirror in which the seas and shores of the earth were imaged.
Now we know the geography of the side toward us about as well as that of
Asia, better than that of Africa. The Astronomer showed them one of
the common small photographs of the moon. He assured them that he had
received letters inquiring in all seriousness if these alleged lunar
photographs were not really taken from a peeled orange. People had got
angry with him for laughing at them for asking such a question. Then
he gave them an account of the famous moon-hoax which came out, he
believed, in 1835. It was full of the most bare-faced absurdities,
yet people swallowed it all, and even Arago is said to have treated it
seriously as a thing that could not well be true, for Mr. Herschel would
have certainly notified him of these marvellous discoveries. The writer
of it had not troubled himself to invent probabilities, but had borrowed
his scenery from the Arabian Nights and his lunar inhabitants from Peter
Wilkins.

After this lecture the Capitalist stepped forward and applied his eye to
the lens. I suspect it to have been shut most of the time, for I observe
a good many elderly people adjust the organ of vision to any optical
instrument in that way. I suppose it is from the instinct of protection
to the eye, the same instinct as that which makes the raw militia-man
close it when he pulls the trigger of his musket the first time. He
expressed himself highly gratified, however, with what he saw, and
retired from the instrument to make room for the Young Girl.

She threw her hair back and took her position at the instrument.
Saint Simeon Stylites the Younger explained the wonders of the moon to
her,--Tycho and the grooves radiating from it, Kepler and Copernicus
with their craters and ridges, and all the most brilliant shows of
this wonderful little world. I thought he was more diffuse and more
enthusiastic in his descriptions than he had been with the older members
of the party. I don't doubt the old gentleman who lived so long on the
top of his pillar would have kept a pretty sinner (if he could have had
an elevator to hoist her up t