May 8, 1885.] 



SCIENCE. 



377 



PROGRESS OF THE LICK OBSER VA TOR Y. 



Something like a year ago, we reviewed the 

 policy and operations of the Board of trustees 

 of Mr. James Lick's bequest of about four mil- 

 lions of dollars for objects patriotic, charitable, 

 and scientific, directing clue attention to the 

 conservative management of the estate, show- 

 ing the utter folly of the attacks which have 

 from time to time been made upon their official 

 actions, and giving the best of reasons why all 

 interested in the administration of this trust 

 should uphold the board in the continuance of 

 the polic}^ which the} T have seen fit to adopt. 

 The cessation of these impolitic hostilities is a 

 matter of noteworth} r significance, because of 

 the relations of the bequest to the Lick ob- 

 servatory, and the other scientific objects 

 which Mr. Lick thought worth gaining. 



The trustees' first work — the construction of 

 the great observatory on the summit of Mount 

 Hamilton — has been prosecuted with such vig- 

 or during the past five years, that its comple- 

 tion at a definite epoch in the near future 

 appears now to be a matter of certainty. It 

 is only possible to sa} T this because informa- 

 tion has just been received from the glass- 

 makers, Messrs. Feil and Mautois of Paris, 

 that all serious difficulty in making the disk 

 of crown-glass for the great telescope has at 

 last been surmounted, — a difficulty which has 

 already delayed the beginning of the opti- 

 cians' work nearly three years, and has per- 

 mitted the trustees to advance the remainder 

 of the observatory to a finished state. The 

 opticians now hope to be enabled to begin 

 their labors upon this great object-glass by 

 next August or September, and to complete 

 their part of the contract within two years' 

 time. This encouraging condition of affairs 

 has been brought about largely by the recent 

 action of the trustees themselves, who, desir- 

 ing to complete as soon as possible their task 

 of constructing and equipping the observatory, 

 and finding that all further progress was con- 

 ditional upon getting the necessary disk of 

 glass, despatched a responsible agent to the 

 eastern states, where he could be in consulta- 



tion with prominent astronomers, and in ready 

 communication with Paris. 



The results of this action have been very 

 satisfactory, and will enable the trustees to 

 sketch the important outlines of their plans 

 for future and final operations on the moun- 

 tain. The fact that the glass is now to be ob- 

 tained with reasonable certainty, has prepared 

 the way for determining the size of the dome 

 which will be required to cover the telescope 

 when finally mounted. This building is already 

 in process of erection, and will consume all the 

 attention of the superintendent of construction 

 for the next two seasons. The dome will have 

 an interior diameter of seventy- three feet ; and 

 the telescope itself, whose exact length cannot 

 yet be defined within narrow limits, will proba- 

 bly be fully sixty feet long, while, with the 

 monster spectroscope attached, it may reach a 

 length of nearly seventy feet from end to end. 



Aside from this important end of secur- 

 ing the data necessary to avoid the entire 

 cessation of work upon Mount Hamilton this 

 summer, the agent of the trustees has also 

 personally inspected the mountings of the 

 great domes at Charlottesville, Washington, 

 and Princeton, including the smaller ones at 

 Harvard, Amherst, Columbia, and other col- 

 leges ; and, on his return to San Francisco, he 

 will report to the trustees on the information 

 he has obtained, and recommend that plan 

 for constructing and mounting the great dome 

 which appears likely to insure in every way 

 the best results. Any competent person who 

 will take the trouble to consider the problem 

 of building this dome from an astronomical 

 and engineering point of view, will readily 

 appreciate the nature of the obstacles to be 

 overcome ; but the eminently satisfactory ar- 

 rangements devised, and already put into suc- 

 cessful operation at this mountain observatoiy, 

 will go a great wa}' toward inspiring confidence 

 in whatever form of dome the trustees finally 

 decide to adopt. In an early issue, we shall 

 place before our readers an account of the 

 Lick observatory and its work, together with 

 a fully illustrated description of the site, build- 

 ings, and instruments. 



