The First Scientific Concept of Rockets for Space Travel by Robert Godwin Part 3

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Good Words

Macleod’s Good Wordsbegan first publication in January of 1860 and was contemporaneous with such other British magazines as “The Cornhill” and “Chambers Journal” and “The Atlantic Monthly” in the United States. Indeed the first issue of "Good Words" appeared on exactly the same day as the first issue of "The Cornhill".[1]

Articles in “Good Words” selected by Macleod ran the gamut from the caravanserais of Iraq to anecdotes about the Emperor Joseph II. In its first year Good Words was a weekly magazine and Macleod serialized Leitch’s essays under the title God’s Glory in the Heavens – The Teachings of the Stars, beginning with the second issue, and then approximately once a month in 1860 until Leitch’s departure for Canada in October. The subjects were as follows:

The First edition of the Good Words magazine published by Alexander Strahan in January 1860
The First edition of the Good Words magazine published by Alexander Strahan in January 1860
  • The Moon – Is it Inhabited? (#2, Week 2, Jan 1860)
  • The Moon’s Invisible Side (#6, Week 4, Feb 1860)
  • Lunar Landscape (#11, Week 3, Mar 1860)
  • Discovery of the New Planet Vulcan (#15, Week 3, Apr 1860)
  • The Approaching Total Eclipse of the Sun (#19, Week 2, May 1860)
  • Comets – Their Nature and Design (#30, Week 5, July 1860)
  • Comets – Their History (#33, Week 3, Aug 1860)
  • The Sun – Its Work and Structure (#37, Week 3, Sept 1860)
  • The Structure of the Planets (#40, Week 2, Oct 1860)
  • The Nebulae (#46, Week 4, Nov 1860)

Just prior to Leitch’s departure for Canada the publisher of Good Words, Alexander Strahan of Edinburgh (and later, London), evidently negotiated a deal with him to anthologize these essays about astronomy into a book, which was to be entitled “God’s Glory in the Heavens; or Something of the Wonders of Astronomy.” Advertisements appeared announcing the forthcoming edition at the end of October 1860.[2]

Announcement of William Leitch's book from October 1860
Announcement of William Leitch's book from October 1860

As a Christian minister Leitch was quite atypical, especially when considering his efforts to reconcile scientific observation with religious doctrine. Such attempts were fraught with risk at that time since the Church of Scotland was undergoing nothing less than a schism between the evangelical factions and those who were less conservative. Macleod was destined to fall into the latter group and by association Leitch would go with him. Over the next two years this would put Leitch into the awkward spot of not being pious enough for some in Scotland and too pious for some in Canada. Alexander Strahan had tried to position Good Words as a forum for all voices to be heard and Leitch's predisposition for science while remaining a reliable minister made him a perfect contributor. His most industrious attempt to explain the apparent contradictions between science and scripture seems to have manifested itself in the series of essays written for Strahan and Macleod.

Several references from the period suggest that Leitch and his brother were acquainted with the work of some of the most respected scientists of their time. If the younger Leitch didn’t know these men first-hand he was certainly keeping his pulse on the scientific breakthroughs coming from London and elsewhere.[3]

The Moon – Is it Inhabited?

In the very first essay he tackled the big question of whether there might be life on the moon. In accordance with that analysis he had to explain to his readers exactly what the lunar environment was like.[4]

“Every possible test has been applied, but no trace whatever of air has been found in the moon. Eclipses and occultations have been watched with the utmost care, but all in vain; some of the tests are so delicate, that if there was an atmosphere capable of raising the mercury one-sixtieth of an inch in the barometer, it would have been detected. If there is an atmosphere after all, how evanescent it must be compared with ours, which raises the mercury to about thirty inches. Could we conceive living creatures to exist in the moon without air, how strange must be the conditions of life!

“Think how strange life must be in the moon without an atmospheric medium. Eternal silence must reign there. A huge rock may be precipitated from the lofty lunar cliffs, but no sound is heard—it falls noiselessly as a flock of wool. The inhabitants can converse only by signs. The musician in vain attempts to elicit sweet music from his stringed instrument; no note ever reaches the ear. Armies in battle array do not hear the boom of the cannon, though rifled arms, from the low trajectory of the ball, must acquire a fatal precision and range. No moving thing can live aloft; the eagle flaps its wings against the rocks, and in vain attempts to rise. The balloon, instead of raising the car, crushes it with the weight of its imprisoned gas.

“Again, the inhabitants, having no atmosphere to shelter them from the sun and store up its heat, must recoil with terror from its fierce rays. During the long lunar day, the ground must become as burning marl, from which the scorched feet shrink with pain ; during the equally long night, it must be colder than frozen mercury. No fuel will burn to mitigate the rigour of the cold, and none but the electric light can avail to dispel the darkness.

“Then as to light, how strange are the conditions! At noon-day the sky is as black as pitch, except in the region of the sun; and the stars shine out as at midnight. When the sun disappears in the horizon, darkness is as sudden as the darkness of an eclipse, or the extinguishing of a candle in a room. The inhabitants, on the shady side of a range of mountains, must be in almost total darkness, though the sun is above the horizon; and a room, lighted by windows in the roof, must be in the same predicament, except when the sun shines directly down.”

This long extract presents many solid insights into Leitch’s range of knowledge. His description of the lunar environment was uncannily accurate. He had evidently monitored everything from eclipses of distant planets by the moon, to the Newtonian possibilities of accurate flight in a vacuum, and the impact of a vacuum on both sound and light. [5]

He also made a throwaway comment about “electric light”, an invention first demonstrated by Humphry Davy in 1809 but still relatively rare in the world of 1860; the Edison light bulb still being 20 years in the future. He already knew this topic having lectured on the subject of electricity while in Glasgow.[6] Evidently Leitch and William Thomson, the soon-to-be Lord Kelvin, would correspond on the subject. In August 1849 a bolt of lightning would strike a farmhouse in Monimail with such peculiar results that Leitch would send samples of melted metal to Kelvin. His letter would trigger an investigation by Kelvin in the laboratories at Glasgow and further investigation by Leitch in Monimail. The letter and results appear in Kelvin’s papers on electrostatics and magnetism.[7]

The Moon’s Invisible Side

In his second essay (The Moon’s Invisible Side) he tackled the issue of whether the far side of the moon could be reasonably expected to be exactly the same as the visible side. He first mentions the libration of the moon which allows earthbound observers to see slightly more than half of the lunar surface, as the moon wobbles back and forth. Leitch explained how the libration had been used to create stereo images of the moon’s surface. He then discussed the new theory put forth by the respected Danish astronomer Peter Andreas Hansen which had proposed that the moon’s near face was elevated towards the Earth to such a degree from the lunar centre of gravity that it would be like scaling a very tall mountain. Hansen’s supposition briefly led to the thought that a lunar atmosphere might have gathered in the “low” ground on the far side and therefore life might be possible there. A reviewer in 1863 chastised Leitch for “unreservedly adopting this (Hansen’s) theory” but a careful reading of Leitch’s comments show no such endorsement. Quite the contrary, Leitch carefully examined the new information and implied that it had only provided sustenance to the advocates for lunar life. The rest of his comments were always phrased in such a way to ignite the reader’s imagination.[8] Leitch then explained how magnificent it would be if only we could conduct a discourse with life on the moon. Remarkably he even postulated the notion that “We could readily conceive a code of signals by which telegraphic communication could be carried on.” Today the word telegraphic implies radio, or possibly wired communication, but despite the rise of the commercial telegraph over the previous 30 years he must certainly have been thinking in terms of flashes of light or some other form of visual communication.[9]

Perhaps the most poetic part of this essay is when he fantasized about how an inhabitant of the lunar far side would know nothing of the Earth unless they were to venture into the “highlands” and cross the rim to the near side. “What an astonishing spectacle must burst upon the view of the lunar tourist as soon as he fairly gets within the new hemisphere! He will see an immense blue orb hung up, immovably fixed in the heavens. It will appear fourteen times larger than the moon appears to us. But though immovably fixed in the heavens, wondrous activities will be discovered. It will exhibit in 28 days all the phases of the moon…its rapid rotation will also be a most notable object…and then the blue atmosphere will be going through incessant changes.”

Lunar Landscape

The third essay appeared in the third week in March 1860 and covered the subject of the lunar landscape. The most obvious features to which he drew attention were the many craters visible from the Earth. He also talked about how finely tuned the climate is on the Earth and how with the slightest change, things would be very different. In keeping with that thought he said, “A slight change in the constitution of the atmosphere, or in the alternation of night and day, would be fatal to many forms of life. Did a comet come into collision with our earth, so as to change its axis, new conditions, wholly destructive to a wide range of animal and vegetable life, would be introduced?” [10]

The notion that a cometary impact would be catastrophic for life goes back at least as far as Edmund Halley, but Leitch specifically postulated in the context of how it might completely upend the fine balance of the ecosystem. This notion was still aggressively challenged over 100 years later when Luis Alvarez made his famous explanation for the end of the dinosaurs.

Discovery of the New Planet Vulcan

About a month later Leitch turned his attention to the announcement that a new planet had been discovered inside the orbit of Mercury. Always writing from the perspective of piety Leitch would deftly stitch together a logical platform to explain each new discovery. In this case it was a few months earlier that the great astronomer Leverrier had calculated that the only explanation for the perturbations in Mercury’s orbit, was the existence of an as-yet undiscovered planet. In December 1859 a French village doctor named Lescarbault sent Leverrier notification that he had observed the missing planet several months earlier. Leitch reveled in the fact that this discovery, like the discovery of Neptune, was no accident but had been predicted by careful calculation. The whole notion of a priori discovery appealed to Leitch as an elegant proof of man’s God-given intellect.[11]

Of course Lescarbault was subsequently proven to be mistaken and the mysterious planet Vulcan consigned to the history of oddities, but even today such famous names as Alan Stern, the chief scientist on the New Horizons mission to Pluto, is known to have searched for small asteroids inside the orbit of Mercury. It would be Einstein who would ultimately explain the weird behavior of Mercury.

The Approaching Total Eclipse of the Sun

Leitch’s next essay concerned itself with eclipses and in this he compared the magnificence of a total solar eclipse with the spectacle of Niagara Falls. His description of Niagara is brief but detailed enough to suppose that he may have already visited Canada before this was written. His account of an eclipse is much more exhaustive and places the reader firmly in that year of 1860 when astronomers like Leitch, Leverrier and Hansen were still attempting to explain the coronasphere and solar prominences. Leitch demonstrated that he was willing to admit what he didn’t understand, rather than simply making things up, and he often challenged those around him who were less fastidious.[12]

Comets – Their Nature and Design & Comets – Their History

Through the summer months of July and August Leitch turned his attention to the mysteries of comets. He would spread his comments over two months and two issues and skipped the June issue because on June 19th 1860 a new comet had been spotted by a French army officer, spurring this prolonged further discussion by Leitch.

This event firmly places the composition of Leitch’s essays in the moment when they were first published. i.e. at the very least, his August essay was definitely composed in late June or early July 1860. In the July essay he discussed the subject of how comets’ tails seemed to be pushed away from the sun, a process which was the source of some consternation amongst his peers.

This apparent resistive force, visible to anyone with a telescope, seemed to defy Newton’s laws of gravitation, a notion which Leitch was not eager to accept. Papers were published about how the sun and planets might have magnetic or electric forces at work to push the tail away from the sun. Leitch made reference to how in Newton’s day the theologians were distraught that the celestial machine might somehow be imperfect, but with a typically enlightened attitude he concluded, “Suppose there is a resistive medium accounting for the destructive course of (comets) towards the sun, or that the law of gravitation requires to be modified by some new law, which may compromise the present order of things by introducing an element of decay are we to conclude that there is a defect of wisdom in the constitution of the celestial machine? Theologians have been too much led away from the idea of the solar system being a rigid machine, with unvarying adjustments, instead of a single phase of the mighty evolutions of the material universe. There is nothing fixed and rigid in the material world except the laws by which the all-wise Ruler governs it.”

To conclude his essay he turned his eye briefly to the subject of life on comets. He dismissed the ruminations of some of his contemporaries who insisted that life could exist anywhere that God ordained it. “But is it right to make our notions of possibility the basis of a theory of God’s providence? The question is one of probability, not of possibility. And if we are to proceed reverentially, we must argue from the known to the unknown, from our experience on this globe to what is probably the Divine procedure in worlds the physical condition of which are only partially revealed to us.”[13]

After discussing the good fortune of the Baron de Marguerit, who had discovered Comet III 1860 by sheer luck while out smoking a cigar, Leitch turned his attention to the consequences of cometary impacts. He didn’t specifically take sides with the few people like Halley who had cautioned of the dangers of comets, but he also didn’t dismiss the danger out of hand. In all of these essays Leitch revealed that he was a free thinker.

“The comet played a most important part in the rude geological theories of those days (Halley’s). Comets are in much disrepute among geologists at the present day, as accounting for the various convulsions and cataclysms indicated by the earth’s crust. In the days of (William) Whiston however, the tails of comets were all important, as they could tilt up the axis of the earth, and produce deluges at will, to account for the various geological phenomena.”

He continued, “To soothe the alarm, mathematicians have calculated the chances of a collision, and have shown the probability of such a catastrophe. Still they have not been able to show the impossibility; and the popular mind is sometimes as much alarmed at the possible as at the probable.

“Astronomers may give an assurance that a comet will come in collision with the earth only once in 280 million years, but then they can give no positive assurance that the one time may not be in our day.”

Leitch concluded this particularly insightful essay by indirectly providing the entire premise for H.G. Wells science fiction story “The Comet” (written in 1897) when he discussed the prevailing notion that the comet’s tail might contain harmful gasses, which if introduced to the Earth’s atmosphere could produce unforeseen results. He then went on to explain how the orbits of comets were generally out of the plane of the ecliptic and therefore were less likely to be the cause of devastation before summing up with this:

“We may regard a comet as a plumb line let down into the depths of space, to explore the nature of the currents, and the objects that may exist far beyond the reach of vision. The change in their constitution, and the disturbance of their orbits, may well tell us of the existence of worlds which the telescope may never reach. As the Lead of the mariner, with its adhesive surface, brings up unmistakable evidence of the nature of the bottom, so comets, when we understand them better, may bring interesting news of regions hitherto unexplored.” [14] Click here for Part 4

Footnotes

  1. ^  Day Of Rest, Strahan and Co, 1881
  2. ^  The Spectator, Oct. 27 1860
  3. ^  At the end of Leitch’s first edition he quotes the following laws: Laws of Motion, Kepler’s Laws, Law of Gravitation, Elements of Elliptical Motion, Secular Variations in Orbit, Laws of Light, and the erroneous Bode’s Law and Kirkwood’s Law.
  4. ^  Good Words, Strahan, Edinburgh, #2 January 1860
  5. ^  Cecilia Leitch seems to have inherited some of her grandfather’s knowledge of ballistics and trajectories, becoming a champion golfer before World War I. Leitch’s brother John travelled extensively. He lived in London and attended King’s College before retiring to an estate near Rothesay. He died in 1880 having never married. William Leitch’s daughter Moncrieffe married Joseph Gordon Stuart of Fife, she died in 1913. Leitch’s son John would earn degrees at Edinburgh and St. Andrews before settling into private practice in Silloth Cumberland where he raised his five daughters and one son, all who would become accomplished golfers. Cecilia is remembered as one of the greatest female golfers of all time. Her fame was such that when she visited Queen’s University in Canada it made the newspapers. (Globe, Nov 5 1921). She was once struck by lightning while out on the course in England and the event made headline news in North America, above a story about a young pilot about to attempt a solo crossing of the Atlantic. The pilot’s name was Charles Lindbergh and he would become one of the most ardent supporters of Robert Goddard’s rocket experiments. (Ottawa Citizen, May 16, 1927.) Cecilia’s brother William Gladstone Leitch would fight in World War I. He survived the conflict and lived until at least the 1930s in London, but it is not known if he has any descendants. William Leitch’s parish records are at St. Andrews University while his granddaughter’s golfing memorabilia is at St. Andrews Golfing Museum.
  6. ^  Men of Fife by M.F. Conolly, Inglis & Jack, Edinburgh, 1866
  7. ^  Reprints of Papers on Electrostatics and Magnetism by Sir William Thomson, Macmillan, London, 1872
  8. ^  Littel’s The Living Age, Boston, June 1863
  9. ^  Good Words, Strahan, Edinburgh, #6 February 1860. The notion of visual communication with the moon or planets continued to be discussed well into the 20th century and it was only with the suppositions of Tesla and Marconi that different frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum entered the conversation.
  10. ^  Good Words, Strahan, Edinburgh, #11 March 1860
  11. ^  Ibid. #15 April 1860
  12. ^  Ibid. #19 May 1860
  13. ^  Ibid. #30 July 1860
  14. ^  Ibid. #33August 1860