Figure 15. — The 62-inch telescope reflector disc (USNM 310899), cast by Standard Plate 

 Glass Company, April 20, 1895, and figured by John Peate. It weighs 2500 pounds. 

 Shown here as it hangs in its protective crate, this clear green glass mirror will be a 

 feature of the exhibit of optics and astronomy now being prepared for the Smithsonian's 

 new Museum of History and Technology, scheduled to open soon after 1962. {Smith- 

 sonian photo 411J2) 



Sedgwick of Nashville, Tennessee, had offered to 

 mount and equip the mirror on the same terms 

 under which Peate had made it. That is, he would 

 do the work if someone would donate the cost and 

 the material. But of this ofTer, too, nothing further 

 was heard. Possibly he died before the mirror was 

 completed. 



The mirror was to remain untouched for some 24 

 years. In 1922 the "Greenville Roundtable," a 

 group reportedly founded by Dr. Peate, allocated 

 $90 to the Reverend H. G. Dodds to investigate 

 the disposition of the mirror. In that same year 

 the Erie Conference appointed Dodds a committee 

 of one to report on the same matter. Dodds visited 



American University and conferred with the chancel- 

 lors. They checked the mirror and it seemed to 

 be in good shape. Dodds then went to Warner 

 and Swasey, in Cleveland, Ohio, where he attempted 

 to discover what it would cost to mount the mirror 

 and provide an observatory. But he learned nothing 

 there. Dodds knew nothing either of astronomy 

 or of glass and his lack of knowledge did not inspire 

 confidence in his mission. He did note a peculiar 

 phenomenon, that people seemed suspicious of the 

 mirror in itself without knowing anything about its 

 actual condition.-^ 



28 Preston, pp. 145-146. 



PAPER 26: THREE 19TH-CENTURY AMERICAN TELESCOPE M.A.KERS 



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