85 



The Kirkwood Observatory of Indiana University. 

 John A. Miller. 



At its November meeting of 1900 the Board of Trustees of Indiana 

 University appropriated a sum of money for tlie purchase of a telescope 

 and some accessories, and for the erection of an Observatory. The Ob- 

 servatory is built of Indiana limestone and was completed in January of 

 1901. It contains six rooms— a library and computing room; a lecture 

 room, which may be darkened at any time, equipped witli a Colt electric 

 lantern, lantern slides and other illustrative apparatus, a convenient dark 

 room: a transit room; the dome room and a room similar to it and imme- 

 diately below it. 



The skeleton of the dome, which is twenty-six feet in diameter, is 

 of white pine and is built according to plans furnished by Messrs. War- 

 ner & Swasey, who also furnished the running mechanism. It is cov- 

 ered with tin. The performance of both dome and shutter is entirely sat- 

 isfactory. 



The design of the Board of Trustees, that the equipment is to be used 

 in a large part for iustrnction and in part for pin-poses of research, de- 

 termined largely the character of the instruments which we afterwards 

 purchased. In the dome-room is mounted a twelve-inch refractor. The 

 objective is by Erashear, and is of high optical excellence, giving star- 

 images which are free from fringes or distortion and on a black field. The 

 mounting is by Warner & Swasey. It is provided with coarse and fine 

 circles in both declination and right ascension, the fine ones being provided 

 with reading microscopes and electric illumination. A star dial-dial 

 located on the north side of the pier and driven by the driving clock, from 

 which the right ascensions can be read directly, is of almost mdispensable 

 convenience. The ch'iving clock drives regularly and the entire mounting 

 is of the highest mechanical excellence. 



The telescope has as accessories a micrometer by Warner & Swasey. 

 provided with elec-tric illumination: a polarizing helioscope; a battery of 

 positive and negative eyepieces by Erashear, and two positive eyepieces 

 by Steinheil und Sohne of Munich. The transit room contains a small 

 universal instrument by Bamberg, a chronograph by Fauth & Co.. a Bond 

 sidereal chronometer, and a sidereal clock. A Howard sidereal clock, with 

 contact that breaks an electric current each second except the fifty-ninth, 

 and the last ten seconds at the end of every five minutes, will be put in 



6 — Academy of Science. 



