ome
truth in De Morgan's supposition that the original work was French. This
may have been Nicollet's: and the American edition was probably enlarged
by the translator, who, according to this account, was Richard Alton
Locke,[46] to whom in America the whole credit, or discredit, of the
hoax is commonly attributed. There can be no doubt that either the
French version was much more carefully designed than the American, or
there was no truth in the story that Arago was deceived by the
narrative; for in its present form the story, though clever, could not
for an instant have deceived any one acquainted with the most elementary
laws of optics. The whole story turns on optical rather than on
astronomical considerations; but every astronomer of the least skill is
acquainted with the principles on which the construction of optical
instruments depends. Though the success of the deception recently
practised on M. Chasles by the forger of the Pascal papers has been
regarded as showing how easily mathematicians may be entrapped, yet even
M. Chasles would not have been deceived by bad mathematics; and Arago, a
master of the science of optics, could not but have detected optical
blunders which would be glaring to the average Cambridge undergraduate.

But let us turn to the story itself.

The account opens with a passage unmistakably from an American hand,
though purporting, be it remembered, to be quoted from the 'Supplement
to the Edinburgh Journal of Science.' 'In this unusual addition to our
journal, we have the happiness of making known to the British public,
and thence to the whole civilised world, recent discoveries in astronomy
which will build an imperishable monument to the age in which we live,
and confer upon the present generation of the human race a proud
distinction through all future time. It has been poetically said' [where
and by whom?] 'that the stars of heaven are the hereditary regalia of
man, as the intellectual sovereign of the animal creation. He may now
fold the zodiac around him with a loftier consciousness of his mental
supremacy.' To the American mind enwrapment in the star-jewelled zodiac
may appear as natural as their ordinary oratorical references to the
star-spangled banner; but the idea is essentially transatlantic, and not
even the most poetical European astronomer could have risen to such a
height of imagery.

Passing over several pages of introductory matter, we come to the
description of the me