The lady of such a professor, on being questioned by a company of ladies as to her husband's emotions at the prospect of such an enlargement of the field of science, excited a strong feeling of displeasure against herself. She could not say that he believed it, and would gladly have said nothing about it; but her inquisitive companions first cross-examined her, and then were angry at her skepticism

"The credulity was general. All New York rang with the wonderful discoveries of Sir John Herschell... There were, indeed, a few sceptics; but to venture to express a doubt of the genuineness of the great lunar discoveries, was considered almost as heinous a sin as to question the truth of revelation."