Currently on eBay, H.P. Lovecraft’s first publication. In Scientific American for 25th of August 1906. In those days Scientific American was about science, not politics.

Interesting to note that this had a cover featuring the New Croton Dam (construction 1892-1906), given the later subject-matter of “The Colour out of Space”. The Dam and its vast lake gathered and sent the first out-of-city supply of water to New York City.

Lovecraft proposed a multi-observatory photographic method of discovering a planet beyond Neptune, at the edge of the solar system. He goes so far as to suggest, basic on his own cosmic observations, that a spot known to him at “50 units” out would be the place to start. The planet Pluto (yes, it is a planet) is sometimes at that distance, a textbook stating it…

averages 40 astronomical units from the Sun, but it ranges from 30 units to 50 units.

It might be interesting for the forthcoming book on Lovecraft’s astronomy to determine: i) when and how he was making the observations that led him to propose “50 units”; and ii) if Pluto was indeed at 50 units out at that time.