280 Beyond the Sierras. 



penetration of liunian thought and perception among the mysteries of the 

 stars. Vain chimera and foolish hyp<jthesi.s! This side of that (juartcr of a 

 century Hne lies the spectroscope, with its astounding revelations. This 

 side of that line lies the great 27-inch objective of the royal observatory 

 of Russia, made by the unrivaled hands of Alvan Clark. Aye, better still, 

 this side of that line lies yon tremendous triumph of the human genius over 

 the conditions of its environment. One of the old Hebrews burst out, saying* 

 " How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth glad 

 tidings ! " man, how beautiful upon the mountain are the form and sub- 

 stance and prophecy of that glorious instrument up yonder, through whose 

 3G-inch all-seeing eye, with only the eye of man at the aperture below, the 

 sky has opened to infinity, the mighty planets have stooped down, and the 

 eternal stars have become an apocalypse of glory ! 



It is of interest to note that the magnifying powers of lenses are to each 

 other as the squares of their diameters, which gives us for the great objective 

 on yonder height a capacity as compared with that of the telescope of St. 

 Petersburg a proportion of sixteen to nine, and as regards the almost infi- 

 nite spheres of space which they respectively penetrate and resolve, a pro- 

 portion of sixty-four to twenty-seven. So vast has been the advance of sci- 

 ence at a single stride. 



All this while the Oakland committee are waiting for us at the station. 

 Here we are at one of the handsomest cities on the continent — not a great 

 city as yet, but a real city and beautiful. Oakland is, for short, the Brooklyn 

 of San Francisco. By no means w'ould I disparage the resources and 

 achievements of the city as it respects commerce, manufactories and mone- 

 tary enterprises. In these respects the Brooklyn analogy is somewhat 

 broken. Oakland is not merely a city of residences. It is a city in other 

 respects ; prosperous for the present and promising for the future. On our 

 arrival we were immediately marshaled to the principal restaurant, with its 

 capacious dining-hall, and were there feasted after the style to which we had 

 now conformed by practice. The Oakland banquet was a superb alliur, marked 

 with the usual abundance of fruits and flowers; but to this feature of the 

 dinner were added certain touches peculiar to the city banquet as distin- 

 guished from the barbacue-like abundance of smaller festivals. 



We were welcomed to Oakland in excellent speeches by the Mayor and 

 other distinguished oflicials, and to these our own officers responded, as they 

 always did, with good taste and eloquence. As soon as the banquet was ended 

 we were taken up for our drive through the city ami its environs. This was 

 one of the finest and most instructive minor excursions with which we were 

 favored during our stay in California. The fact is, the writer himself was 

 rather broken up in his emotions and sentiments l)y his ride through the 

 streets of Oakland and out to the villas of the foot-hills. The residences 

 here are of the highest order. Everything that wealth of resources and ex- 

 quisite taste can produce has here been amply planted and developed 

 around the elegant homes of the people. The largest private flower garden 



