222 Miscellanies. 
joining two of which corresponds to one minute of time at the equator. 
The tube and speculum, including the bed on which the latter rests, weigh 
about 15 tons. 
“‘ The telescope rests on an universal joint, placed on masonry about 
six feet below the ground, and is elevated or depressed by a chain and 
windlass; and, although it weighs about 15 tons, the instrument is raised 
by two men with great facility. Of course, it is counterpoised in every 
direction. 
“ At present it can be used only between 14 degrees of southern alti- 
tude and the zenith, but when completed its range will embrace an arc 
between 10 degrees of altitude toward the south, and 47 degrees north; 
so that all objects between the pole and 27 degrees south of the equa- 
tor will be observable with it; whilst in the equator any object can be 
viewed with it about forty minutes of time on either side of the meridian, 
* ‘The observer, when at work, stands in one of four galleries; the three 
highest of which are drawn out from the western wall, whilst the fourth, 
or lowest, has for its base an elevating platform, along the horizontal 
surface of which a gallery slides from wall to wall by machinery within 
the observer’s reach, but which a child may work. 
_“ When the telescope is about half an hour east of the meridian, 
the galleries hanging over the gap between the walls present to a spec- 
tator below an appearance somewhat dangerous ; yet the observer, with 
common. prudence, is as safe as on the ground, and each of the galleries 
can be drawn from the wall of the telescope’s side so readily, that 
the observer needs no one else to move it for him. 
_ “The telescope, lying at its least altitude can be raised to the zenith 
by the two men at the windlass in six minutes; and so manageable is the 
enormous mass, that give me the right ascension and declination of any 
celestial object between these points, and | will have the object in the 
field of the telescope within eight minutes from the first attempt to raise it. 
“When the observer has found the object; he must at present fol- 
low it by rack-work within its reach. As yet it has no equatorial mo- 
tion, but it very shortly will have it, and at no very distant day cleck-work 
will be connected with it, when the observer, if I, mistake not, will - 
whilst observing, be almost as comfortable as if he were reading at 
a desk by his fireside.” 
__ Observations.—The night of the 5th of March was very clear, and 
the sidereal pictures were glorious. Many nebule. were for the first 
time since their creation, seen as groups or clusters of stars, 
The ring nebula in the Canes venatici, the 51st of Messier’s cata- 
logue, was resolved into stars with a magnifying power of 548, and 
the 94th of Messier into a large globular cluster of stars. 
The power of this telescope in resolving nebule, hisherto considered 
irresolvable, was extremely gratifying. 
