Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 September 1891 — The Comet Finder. [ARTICLE]

The Comet Finder.

The Science News characterizes as one of the most ingenious scientific hoaxes ever perpetrated, the description of an alleged automatic “comet finder” attributed to the inventive fenius of Professor Barnard of the dck Observatory, the action of which was said to be dependent upon the varying electric resistance of the element selenium under the action of light. Originally appearing last spring in a San Francisco daily newspaper, it was written with such skill, and with all the details of the apparatus described in such a plausible manner by one evidently thoroughly familiar with the principles of physics and astronomy, that it was particularly well calculated to deceive—as, in fact, it did—nearly every scientific periodical in the country, although a close examination of the article would have shown at once the absurdity of the story. A letter from Professor Barnard, exposing the hoax, states that he considers it one of the most remarkable ever gotten up on an astronomical subject, and that it was originated by a young man of remarkable ability—as, indeed, he must have been to have succeeded in deceiving so many persons familiar with such matters. Professor Barnard’s “comet finder” will have to be classified hereafter with the “moon hoax” of some half a century ago, and other products of a too livelv and indiscriminating scientific imagition.