Chains to sides of building -, 



Planking , 



Crank to 

 oscillate fool -, 



Figure 14. — Surfacing machine used by Peate. (From Preston, fig- 4.) 



casting of the disc but the completion of the mirror. 

 It feigned surprise that this was all that was to be 

 done in Butler. Even as late as May 24, 1895, the 

 Butler Democratic Herald was still defending its town. 

 It concluded an editorial on the issue thus: 

 ... we have a feeling he [The Budget] has set his foot in it 

 when he goes to poke fun at the Standard about casting the 

 biggest mold on earth, and the end of it may be a repetition 

 of the old saw "he who laughs last laughs best." 

 A week before this, however, the success of this cast- 

 ing had been made more or less official by an an- 



nouncement to that effect in the May 17, 1895, issue 

 of Science, a publication of the American Association 

 for the Advancement of Science and probably the 

 most highly regarded scientific paper of the time. 



On June 1, 1895, Standard Plate rendered Peate an 

 invoice, not for SI 600, but for $450. Evidently their 

 work was done at cost. The disc was now removed to 

 Greenville where Dr. Peate had erected a shop to 

 grind, polish, and figure it. As the disc was slightly 

 out of round the first operation was to made it per- 

 fectly circular. Peate did this roughly by spalling ofT 



PAPER 26: THREE 19TH-CENTURY AMERICAN TELESCOPE MAKERS 



177 



