Sept. 



30. lobOj 



KATU!iE 



5'5 



for thirty-two students. On the third floor a large 

 and lofty central room, with open limber roof, par- 

 tially lit from the roof, is intended for a museum. 

 The basement story, extending under the whole of 

 the ground floor, is lofty and well lighted, and contains 

 store-rooms, rooms for special operations in physics and 

 chemistry, a large room for mineralogy, rooms for living 

 animals, boilers, &c. Altogether the building contains at 

 present about 100 rooms. The heating and ventilating 

 arrangements are upon a somewhat novel plan. Near the 

 centre of the area riies a huge chimney-stack to the 

 height of i6o feet, containing three flues divided by thin 

 partitions. The smoke from the boiler passes off by the 

 central flue and heats the air in the adjoining flues, which 

 are used for ventilating the lecture theatres. The warm- 

 ing is effected by a coil of pipes containing 4,475 super- 

 ficial feet, and fed with water from the large boiler in a 

 vault in tlie sub-basement. The arrangements in fact 

 are throughout of the most modern and approved types, 

 having been adopted by the architect after mature con- 

 sideration of all the best features of the principal scien- 

 tific colleges in this country and on the Continent, which 

 he visited at the request of the trustees. 



The generous founder, who has taken a most active 

 interest in the progress of the work, has built the college 

 and furnished its various departments entirely at his own 

 cost, so that the large endowments previously conveyed 

 to the trustees remain untouched. Sir Josiah Mason has 

 stated that his ambition was to afford all classes in the 

 Midland district, where he had been born and bred, the 

 means of carrying on those scientific studies of which he 

 had felt the want as completely and thoroughly as they 

 can be prosecuted in any of the great science schools of 

 Europe. 



We earnestly trust that the noble and benevolent inten- 

 tion of the founder will continue to be carried out, and 

 that in time the institution will become as important and 

 comprehensive a centre of higher education as Owens 

 College is now. 



THE PROPOSED LICK OBSERVATORY 



MR. S. W. BURNHAM has printed his Report to the 

 Trustees of the "James Lick Trust" of observa- 

 tions made on Mount Hamilton, California, with refer- 

 ence to the location of the observatory, for the erection 

 and endo.vment of which funds are thereby provided. 

 His object being to test the adaptation of the site for 

 astronomical purposes by observations of double-stars 

 mainly, Mr. Burnham took with him his 6-inch refractor, 

 by .Alvan Clark and Sons, which he has used in nearly all 

 his astronomical work, and the e.xcellence of which has 

 been sufficiently proved by the number of difficult double- 

 stars discovered with it during the last six or eight years. 

 He remained on Mount Hamilton from August 17 to 

 October 16, and in this interval was in the observatory on 

 every clear night, with three exceptions. During the first 

 thirty-seven nights he states vision was first-class on all 

 occasions with these exceptions ; on two nights the ocean 

 fogs from the valley below reached the summit of the 

 mountain and remained all night, and on two other nights 

 there was only medium steadiness. The kind of weather 

 for astronomical observations during the whole period of 

 sixty days that Mr. Burnham remained at the summit, 

 was forty-two first-class nights, seven medium nights, and 

 eleven cloudy and foggy ones. In the whole interval 

 there was not a single poor night when it was clear. By 

 first-class seeing Air. Burnham explains that he means 

 " such a night as will allow of the use of the highest 

 powers to advantage, giving sharp, well-defined images, 

 and where the closest and most difficult double-stars 

 within the grasp of the instrument can be satisfactorily 

 measured." The conditions weregenerally very permanent 

 for the w^holc night, which is not often the case in ordinary 



localities. On many nights Mr. Burnham remained at 

 the telescope until daylight, and so had abundant oppor- 

 tunities of noting this important fact. 



Having provided himself with a series of cardboard 

 disks, with apertures increasing from one inch up to the 

 full aperture of the object-glass, INIr. Burnham observed 

 a large number of familiar objects, contracting the light 

 until the smaller star was just distinctly visible ; many of 

 these objects had been used elsewhere for a similar 

 purpose. He considers some of the observations are 

 remarkable, allowing for the difficulty of the objects with 

 muc;h larger apertures in other localities : ^i- Herculis 

 (the close pair) was vciy fairly seen with the full aperture, 

 and the companion of a' Capricorni was plain with the 

 aperture contracted to 4 inches, and was seen double 

 with the whole six ; these objects Mr. Burnham says he 

 is confident have " never been seen before with so small 

 an object-glass." The fifth and sixth stars of 6' Orionis 

 were very plain at an hour-angle of 45 hours ; f Herculis 

 was well seen with 3I in. ; and x] Cassiopeffi was easy when 

 the aperture was reduced to 1} inch. Forty-two new 

 double stars were detected, and micrometrical measures 

 of ninety of these objects previously named were put 

 upon record. A great many were examined by daylight, 

 but the air, during the greater part of the day at least, 

 was not found to be steadier than is ordinarily the case 

 elsewhere. It is mentioned, however, that the fifth and 

 sixth stars of the trapezium of Orion were beauti- 

 fully seen in broad daylight just before sunrise. At 

 the epoch iS79'6S4 the first measure was made fifteen 

 minutes before sunrise, and "both stars were readily 

 seen for some time after this." Venus was vei'y 

 readily seen with the naked eye at any hour of the 

 day, and easily found without any instrumental indi- 

 cation of its place. Mr. Burnham urges that the new 

 double stars brought to light evidence better than any- 

 thing else can, what may be done at Mount Hamilton, 

 and remarking that these discoveries were effected with 

 an instrument which in these days of great refractors 

 would be regarded as a comparatively inferior telescope, 

 he considers that it is impossible to overestimate the 

 great discoveries which might be made at this station 

 with a first-class object-glass, such for instance as the 

 Naval Observatory, Washington, already possesses, or 

 the proposed Pulkowa glass of twenty-five times the 

 light-power of the one employed ; and according to the 

 terms of the Trust the telescope for Mount Hamilton is 

 required to be "superior to and more powerful than any 

 telescope ever yet made;" a condition, however, which 

 perhaps may not be so easily fulfilled as laid down. 

 Mr. Burnham concludes from his experiences on Mount 

 Hamilton that it " offers advantages superior to those 

 found at any point where a permanent observatory has 

 been established." The station is about fifty miles south 

 of San Francisco and twenty-six miles nearly east of 

 San Jose, the nearest point of railway connection. The 

 ocean fogs, which might have been feared, were not found 

 to reach the elevation, except rarely. Nearly every night 

 this fog, commencing soon after sunset, comes in from 

 the Pacific between the Golden Gate on the north and 

 the Bay of Monterey on the south, and covers the whole 

 valley, but is ordinarily perhaps 2,000 feet below the 

 summit of the mountain, which has an elevation of 4,250 

 feet above the level of the sea, and has no sensible effect 

 at such altitude. 



It will be seen that Mr. Burnham's knowledge of the 

 locality is confined to the space of two months, but a 

 letter from Prof. Davidson of the U.S. Coast Survey, who 

 has had long experience at other seasons, is appended 

 to the report, which is of a very fcivourable nature, and Mr. 

 Burnham appears to have no hesitation in advising the 

 adoption of Mount Hamilton as the site of the Lick 

 Observatory, which we may hope will be successful in pro- 

 curing an instrument worthy of the other great astronomical 



