ifS The West American Scientist. 



from San Jose, and changed horses for the third or mountain stage 

 of the journey. 



Right above us, on the top of a sharp peak, was perched the 

 great Lick Observatory. It seemed in the clear mountain air to 

 be but a little way off, and the actual distance is only two miles, 

 but fully seven miles of road have to be traversed before you reach 

 the summit. The road is so laid out, that there is not one steep 

 place in the whole twenty-seven miles, though to accomplish this 

 result, the turns and returns are so numerous, that in a fog one 

 could never guess toward what point of the compass he was mak- 

 ing headway. 



But as we worked up the mountain, the great dome kept grow- 

 ing in size and clearness, and as we looked back, the tops of the 

 oak-dotted hills kept sinking lower and lower, till, ere we were 

 hardly aware, we were standing on the very summit, and had en- 

 tered our names in the visitors' album which rests in the hall of 

 the observatory. 



The time was a little past noon, and as we had wisely eaten our 

 lunch on the way, we had two free hours before it was time to 

 start down the mountain. 



The top of the peak on which the main building is situated, had 

 to be levelled down some thirty feet, to afford sufficient room for 

 the foundations. The building is a long, one-story structure, very 

 substantially built, and finished in a style of plain elegance. A 

 marble-floored hall runs the whole length of the building upon one 

 side, and from this open various rooms, as the clock-room, the 

 library, the instrument-room, and the office. In the center of the 

 building is a small but beautiful rotunda, lighted from above, and 

 in the walls are niches for statuary. 



At the western end of the observatory is a twenty-five foot tower 

 and dome, in which is mounted a twelve inch equatorial telescope. 

 This part of the establishment has been completed for some time, 

 and would be considered an excellent equipment, were it not 

 dwarfed by the mighty work which is now in progress at the other 

 end of the long hall. This is, of course, nothing less than the 

 huge tower and dome in which is to be placed the great telescope, 

 with its thirty-six inch lenses, and its fifty-seven feet focal length. 



The massive walls of the circular tower are built of bricks which 

 were moulded and burned near the summit of the mountain. The 

 diameter of this tower is seventy-five feet, and in its center is the 

 massive foundation for the pier on which the great telescope is to 

 rest. Within this foundation, sealed up for all time, rest the mor- 

 tal remains of the donor, James Lick. Forty-four hundred feet 

 above the valley, beneath the most sky-piercing instrument ever 

 constructed, could he wish for a more renowned resting place, or 

 a more enduring monument ? 



Around the top of the wall of the tower runs a circular railway, 

 and upon the massive trucks rests the enormous steel dome. It 



