Abstract: The essay of “A Discourse on the Earth”, published in the first month issue of the Shen Daily in 1872, was called the first scientific enlightenment of populace, “a kind of astronomical and geographical knowledge which could be read in a newspaper”. However, the question of “who on earth was the writer” remains a centenary mystery. According to some data in the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty, the real writer should be Gao Yunlin, an educated young man in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, instead of Jiang Qizhang, a chief writer at the Shen Daily.