be found who would make such an instrument as they LITTLE 

 wanted for the price they could afford to pay. They, JOURNEYS 

 however, found an amateur lens polisher who offered 

 to sell his tools, materials and instruments for a small 

 sum. After consultation the brother and sister bought 

 him out. So at the price they expected to pay for a 

 telescope they had on their hands a machine shop. 

 QThe work of grinding and polishing lenses is a most 

 delicate business. Only a person of infinite patience 

 and persistency can succeed at it. In Alleghany, Penn- 

 sylvania, lives John Brashear, who, by his own efforts, 

 assisted by a noble wife, graduated from a rolling mill 

 and became a maker of telescopes. Brashear is prac- 

 tically the one telescope lens-maker of America since 

 Alvan Clark resigned. There is no competition in this 

 line the difficulties are too appalling for the average 

 man. The slightest accident or an unseen flaw, and the 

 work of months or years goes into the dust-bin of time, 

 and all must be gone over again. 



So when we think of this brother and sister sailing 

 away upon an unknown ocean working day after day, 

 night after night, week after week and month after 

 month, discarding scores of specula which they had 

 worked upon many weary hours in order to get the 

 glass that would serve we must remove our hats in 

 reverence. 



141 



