the new and the undesired, or that astronomers do “discover” Saturn, and do not know Mercury when they see him—and that Buckle overlooked something when he wrote that only the science of history attracts inferior minds often not fit even for clergymen.
Whatever we think of Flammarion, we admire his deftness. But we shall have an English instance of the ways in which Astronomy maintains itself and controls those who say that they see that which they “should” not see, which does seem beefy. One turns the not very attractive-looking pages of the English Mechanic, 1893, casually, perhaps, at any rate in no expectations of sensations—glaring at one, a sketch of such a botanico-pathologic monstrosity as a musk melon with rows of bunions on it {English Mechanic, Oct. 20, 1893). The reader is told, by Andrew Barclay, F. R. A. S., Kilmarnock, Scotland, that this enormity is the planet Jupiter, according to the speculum of his Gregorian telescope. In the next issue of the English Mechanic, Capt. Noble, F. R. A. S., writes, gently enough, that, if he had such a telescope, he would dispose of the optical parts for whatever they would bring, and would make a chimney cowl of the tube. English Mechanic, 1893-2-309—the planet Mars, by Andrew Barclay—a dark sphere, surrounded by a thick ring of lighter material; attached to it, another sphere, of half its diameter—a sketch as gross and repellent to a conventionalist as the museum freak, in whose body the head of his dangling twin is embedded, its dwarfed body lopping out from his side. There is a description by Mr. Barclay, according to whom the main body is red, and the proturberance blue. Capt. Noble—“Preposterous . . . last straw that breaks the camel’s back!”
Mr. Barclay comes back with some new observations upon Jupiter’s lumps, and then, in the rest of the volume is not heard from again. One reads on, interested in quieter matters, and gradually forgets the controversy—
English Mechanic, August 23, 1897:
A gallery of monstrosities: Andrew Barclay, signing himself “F. R. A. S.,” exhibiting:
