Читать книгу The Story of the Sun: New York, 1833-1918 онлайн

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The largest lake described was two hundred and sixty-six miles long and one hundred and ninety-three wide, shaped like the Bay of Bengal, and studded with volcanic islands. One island in a large bay was pinnacled with quartz crystals as brilliant as fire. Near by roamed zebras three feet high. Golden and blue pheasants strutted about. The beach was covered with shell-fish. Dr. Grant did not say whether the fire-making beavers ever held a clambake there.

The Sun of Friday, August 28, 1835, was a notable issue. Not yet two years old, Mr. Day’s newspaper had the satisfaction of announcing that it had achieved the largest circulation of any daily in the world. It had, it said, 15,440 regular subscribers in New York and 700 in Brooklyn, and it sold 2,000 in the streets and 1,220 out of town—a grand total of 19,360 copies, as against the 17,000 circulation of the London Times. The double-cylinder Napier press in the building at Nassau and Spruce Streets—the corner where the Tribune is to-day, and to which the Sun had moved on August 3—had to run ten hours a day to satisfy the public demand. People waited with more or less patience until three o’clock in the afternoon to read about the moon.