Clement Amazing Stories Volume 117

1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-3-98744-710-5
Verlag: OTB eBook publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 147 Seiten

Reihe: Classics To Go

Amazing Stories Volume 117 is a great collection of action short stories from The Golden Age of Science Fiction. Featured here are three short stories by different authors: Attitude, by Hal Clement, Death Star by Tom Pace, and The Moon Hoax by Richard Adams Locke.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Clement, Hal

Leseproben

Richard Adams Locke
AS SEEN BY LORD ROSSE'S TELESCOPE. "The clouds still rested on one half of it, insomuch that I could discover nothing in it; but the other appeared to me a vast ocean planted with innumerable islands, that were covered with fruits and flowers, and interwoven with a thousand little shining seas that ran among them. I could see persons dressed in glorious habits with garlands upon their heads, passing among the trees, lying down by the sides of fountains, or resting on beds of flowers; and could hear a confused harmony of singing birds, falling waters, human voices, and musical instruments. Gladness grew in me upon the discovery of so delightful a scene. I wished for the wings of an eagle, that I might fly away to those happy seats; but the genius told me there was no passage to them except through the gates of death that I saw opening every moment upon the bridge." ADDISON. GREAT
ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERIES
LATELY MADE BY SIR JOHN HERSCHEL, L.L., D.F.R.S., &c., AT THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. 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 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, that the stars of heaven are the hereditary regalia of man, as the intellectual sovereign of the animal creation. He may now fold the Zodiack around him with a loftier consciousness of his mental supremacy. It is impossible to contemplate any great Astronomical discovery without feelings closely allied to a sensation of awe, and nearly akin to those with which a departed spirit may be supposed to discover the realities of a future state. Bound by the irrevocable laws of nature to the globe on which we live, creatures "close shut up in infinite expanse," it seems like acquiring a fearful supernatural power when any remote mysterious works of the Creator yield tribute to our curiosity. It seems almost a presumptuous usurpation of powers denied us by the divine will, when man, in the pride and confidence of his skill, steps forth, far beyond the apparently natural boundary of his privileges, and demands the secrets and familiar fellowship of other worlds. We are assured that when the immortal philosopher to whom mankind is indebted for the thrilling wonders now first made known, had at length adjusted his new and stupendous apparatus with a certainty of success, he solemnly paused several hours before he commenced his observations, that he might prepare his own mind for discoveries which he knew would fill the minds of myriads of his fellow-men with astonishment, and secure his name a bright, if not transcendant conjunction with that of his venerable father to all posterity. And well might he pause! From the hour the first human pair opened their eyes to the glories of the blue firmament above them, there has been no accession to human knowledge at all comparable in sublime interest to that which he has been the honored agent in supplying; and we are taught to believe that, when a work, already preparing for the press, in which his discoveries are embodied in detail, shall be laid before the public, they will be found of incomparable importance to some of the grandest operations of civilized life. Well might he pause! He was about to become the sole depository of wondrous secrets which had been hid from the eyes of all men that had lived since the birth of time. He was about to crown himself with a diadem of knowledge which would give him a conscious pre-eminence above every individual of his species who then lived, or who had lived in the generations that are passed away. He paused ere he broke the seal of the casket which contained it. To render our enthusiasm intelligible, we will state at once, that by means of a telescope of vast dimensions and an entirely new principle, the younger Herschel, at his observatory in the Southern Hemisphere, has already made the most extraordinary discoveries in every planet of our solar system; has discovered planets in other solar systems; has obtained a distinct view of objects in the moon, fully equal to that which the unaided eye commands of terrestrial objects at the distance of a hundred yards; has affirmatively settled the question whether this satellite be inhabited, and by what order of beings; has firmly established a new theory of cometary phenomena; and has solved or corrected nearly every leading problem of mathematical astronomy. For our early and almost exclusive information concerning these facts, we are indebted to the devoted friendship of Dr. Andrew Grant, the pupil of the elder, and for several years past the inseperable coadjutor of the younger Herschel. The amanuensis of the latter at the Cape of Good Hope, and the indefatigable superintendent of his telescope during the whole period of its construction and operation, Dr. Grant has been enabled to supply us with intelligence equal, in general interest at least, to that which Dr. Herschel himself has transmitted to the Royal Society. Indeed our correspondent assures us that the voluminous documents now before a committee of that institution contain little more than details and mathematical illustrations of the facts communicated to us in his own ample correspondence. For permission to indulge his friendship in communicating this invaluable information to us, Dr. Grant and ourselves are indebted to the magnanimity of Dr. Herschel, who, far above all mercenary considerations, has thus signally honored and rewarded his fellow-laborer in the field of science. The engravings of lunar animals and other objects, and of the phases of the several planets, are accurate copies of drawings taken in the observatory by Herbert Home, Esq., who accompanied the last powerful series of reflectors from London to the Cape, and superintended their erection; and he has thus recorded the proofs of their triumphant success. The engravings of the belts of Jupiter is a reduced copy of an imperial folio drawing by Dr. Herschel himself, and contains the results of his latest observation of that planet. The segment of the inner ring of Saturn is from a large drawing by Dr. Grant. We first avail ourselves of the documents which contain a description and history of the instrument by which these stupendous discoveries have been made. A knowledge of the one is essential to the credibility of the other. THE YOUNGER HERSCHEL'S TELESCOPE.
It is well known that the great reflecting telescope of the late elder Herschel, with an object-glass four feet in diameter, and a tube forty feet in length, possesses a magnifying power of more than six thousand times. But a small portion of this power was ever advantageously applied to the nearer astronomical objects; for the deficiency of light from objects so highly magnified, rendered them less distinct than when viewed with a power of a third or fourth of this extent. Accordingly the powers which he generally applied when observing the moon or planets, and with which he made his most interesting discoveries, ranged from 220, 460, 750, and 900 times; although, when inspecting the double and treble fixed stars, and the more distant nebulæ, he frequently applied the full capacity of his instrument. The law of optics, that an object becomes dim in proportion as it is magnified, seemed, from its exemplification in this powerful telescope, to form an insuperable boundary to further discoveries in our solar system. Several years, however, prior to the death of this venerable astronomer, he conceived it practicable to construct an improved series of parabolic and spherical reflectors, which, by uniting all the meritorious points in the Gregorian and Newtonian instruments, with the highly interesting achromatic discovery of Dolland, would, to a great degree, remove the formidable obstruction. His plan evinced the most profound research in optical science, and the most dexterous ingenuity in mechanical contrivance; but accumulating infirmities, and eventually death, prevented its experimental application. His son, the present Sir John Herschel, who had been nursed and cradled in the observatory, and a practical astronomer from his boyhood, was so fully convinced of the value of the theory, that he determined upon testing it, at whatever cost. Within two years of his father's death he completed his new apparatus, and adapted it to the old telescope with nearly perfect success. He found that the magnifying power of 6,000 times, when applied to the moon, which was the severest criterion that could be selected, produced, under these new reflectors, a focal object of exquisite distinctness, free from every achromatic obscurity, and containing the highest degree of light which the great speculum could collect from that luminary. The enlargement of the angle of vision which was thus acquired, is ascertained by dividing the moon's distance from the observatory by the magnifying power of the instrument; and the former being 240,000 miles, and the latter 6,000 times, leaves a quotient of 40 miles as the apparent distance of that planet from the eye of the observer. Now it is well known that no terrestrial objects can be seen at a greater distance than this, with the naked eye, even from the most favorable elevations. The rotundity of the earth prevents a more distant view than this with the most acute natural vision, and from the highest eminences; and, generally, objects seen at this distance are themselves elevated on mountainous ridges. It is not pretended, moreover, that this forty miles telescopic view of the moon presented its objects...