Part 14

Various sites were suggested for the great telescope. A gentleman relates the following story: "One of the sites suggested was a mountain north of San Francisco. Mr. Lick was ill, but determined upon visiting this mountain; so he was taken on a cot to the station; and on arriving at the town nearest the mountain, the cot was removed to a wagon, and they started towards the summit. By some accident the rear of the wagon gave way, and the cot containing the old gentleman slid out on the mountain-side. This so angered him that he said he would never place the telescope on a mountain that treated him in that way, and ordered the party to turn back towards San Francisco."

During the summer of 1875 Mr. Lick sent Mr. Fraser, his trusted agent, to report on Mount St. Helena, Monte Diablo, Mount Hamilton, and others. In many respects the latter, in sight of his old mill at San José, seemed the best situated of all the mountain peaks. "Yet the possibility that a complete astronomical establishment might one day be planted on its summit seemed more like a fairy-tale than like sober fact," says Professor Edward S. Holden, Director of the Lick Observatory. "It was at that time a wilderness. A few cattle-ranches occupied the valleys around it. Its slopes were covered with chaparral or thickets of scrub oak. Not even a trail led over it. The nearest house was eleven miles away." It was and is the home of many rattlesnakes. They live upon squirrels, and small birds and their eggs, and come up to the top of the mountain in quest of water.

Sir Edwin Arnold, who visited Mount Hamilton, tells this incident of the "road-runner," the bird sometimes called "chaparral cock," as it was told to him. "The rattlesnake is the deadly enemy of its species, always hunting about in the thickets for eggs and young birds, since the 'road-runner' builds its nest on the ground. When, therefore, the 'chaparral cocks' find a 'rattler' basking in the sun, they gather, I was assured, leaves of the prickly cactus, and lay them in a circle all around the serpent, which cannot draw its belly over the sharp needles of these leaves. Thus imprisoned, the reptile is set upon by the birds, and pecked or spurred to death."

Mount Hamilton, fifty miles southeast of San Francisco, is near San José, twenty-six miles eastward, and thus easy of access, save the difficulty of reaching its summit, 4,300 feet above the sea. This was overcome by the willingness of Santa Clara County to construct a road to its top; which road was completed in December, 1876, at a cost of about $78,000. The road rises 4,000 feet in twenty-two miles; and the grade nowhere exceeds six and one-half feet in one hundred, or 343 feet to the mile. Towards the top it winds round and round the flanks of the mountain itself.

The view from the top of the mountain is most inspiring. "The lovely valley of Santa Clara and the Santa Cruz mountains to the west, a bit of the Pacific and the Bay of Monterey to the southwest, the Sierra Nevada (13,000-14,000 feet) with countless ranges between to the southeast, the San Joaquin valley with the Sierras beyond to the east, while to the north lie many lower ranges of hills, and on the horizon Mount Shasta, or Lassens' Butte (14,400 feet), 175 miles away. The Bay of San Francisco lies flat before you, and beyond it is Mount Tamalpais at the entrance to the Golden Gate."

"One of the gorges in the vicinity of Mount Hamilton," writes Taliesin Evans in the May, 1886, _Century_, "is reputed to have been a favorite retreat of Joaquin Murietta, the famous bandit, whose name was a terror to the early settlers of the State. A spring, situated a mile and a half east of Observatory Peak, at which he is said to have drawn water, now bears the name of 'Joaquin's Spring.'"

On June 7, 1876, Congress gave the land for the site, 1,350 acres; and other land was given and purchased, till the Observatory now has 2,581 acres. It was necessary to remove 72,000 tons of solid rock from the mountain summit, which was lowered as much as thirty-two feet in places, that the buildings might have a level foundation. Clay for making the brick was found about two and one-half miles below the Observatory (by the road), thus saving over $46,000 in the 2,600,000 bricks used. Springs also were fortunately discovered about 340 feet below the present level of the summit.

In 1879, after the site had been decided upon, Professor S. W. Burnham of Chicago was asked by the Lick trustees to test it for astronomical purposes. He took his telescope, and remained there during August, September, and October. Out of sixty nights he found forty-two were of the very highest class for making observations, while eleven were foggy or cloudy. He discovered forty-two new double stars while on the top of the mountain.

Professor Burnham said in his Report, "The remarkable steadiness of the air, and the continued succession of nights of almost perfect definition, are conditions not to be hoped for in any place with which I am acquainted, and judging from the previous reports of the various observatories, are not to be met with elsewhere."

Meantime, even before Congress gave the land in 1876, Mr. D. O. Mills, one of the first trustees, had visited Professor Holden and Professor Newcomb at Washington to determine about the general plans for the Observatory. It was agreed that the latter should go to Europe to investigate the matter of procuring the glass necessary for a large reflector or refractor. It was finally decided that a refracting telescope was the best for the study of double stars and nebulæ, the moon's surface, etc., giving more distinctness and brilliancy, and being less subject to atmospheric disturbance.

Professor Newcomb experienced much difficulty in Europe in finding a firm ready to undertake to make a glass for a telescope larger and more powerful than any yet made. The firm of M. Feil & Sons, Paris, was finally chosen. Professor Newcomb wrote an interesting report of the process of making the glass.

"The materials," he said, "are mixed and melted in a clay pot holding from five hundred pounds to a ton, and are constantly stirred with an iron rod until the proper combination is obtained. The heat is then slowly diminished until the glass becomes too stiff to be stirred longer. Then the mass, pot and all, is placed in the annealing furnace. Here it must remain undisturbed for a period of a month or more, when it is taken out; the pot and the outside parts of the glass are broken away to find whether a lump suitable for the required disk can be found in the interior.

"If the interior were perfectly solid and homogeneous, there would be no further difficulty; the lump would be softened by heat, pressed into a flat disk, and reannealed, when the work would be complete. But in practice, the interior is always found to be crossed in every direction by veins of unequal density, which will injure the performance of the glass; and the great mechanical difficulty in the production of the disk is to cut these veins out and still leave a mass which can be pressed into a disk without any folding of the original surface."

The glass for a telescope is usually composed of a double convex lens of crown glass, and a plano-concave lens of flint glass. M. Feil & Sons made and shipped the latter, which weighed three hundred and seventy-five pounds, but broke the crown glass in packing it. Then during three years they made twenty unsuccessful trials before obtaining a perfect glass.

The cutting away of the clay pot and outside glass is a tedious process, requiring weeks and even months. No ordinary tools can be used. The pieces are "sawed by a wire working in sand and water.... When it is done," says Professor Newcomb, "the mass must be pressed into the shape of a disk, like a very thin grindstone, and in order to do this the lump must first be heated to the melting-point, so as to become plastic. But when Feil began to heat this large mass it flew to pieces." He took more and more time for heating, and finally succeeded.

The noted firm of Alvan Clark & Sons of Cambridge, Mass., did the polishing and shaping of the lenses, a labor requiring great skill and delicacy of workmanship. The objective glass was ordered in 1880, and reached Mount Hamilton late in 1886, having cost $51,000. It weighs with its cell 638 pounds. The Clarks would not undertake any larger objective than thirty-six inches. This was six inches larger than the great glass which they had made for the Imperial Observatory at Pulkowa, near St. Petersburg in Russia.

The glass, though an important part of the telescope, was only one of many things to be obtained. In 1876 Captain Richard S. Floyd, president of the Lick trustees, himself a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, met Professor Holden in London; and the latter became the planner and adviser, throughout the construction of the buildings and the telescope. Captain Floyd visited many observatories, and carried on a vast correspondence, amounting to several thousand letters, with astronomers and opticians all over the world.

Professor Holden was a graduate of West Point, had been a professor of mathematics in the navy, one of the astronomers at the Washington Observatory, in charge of several eclipse expeditions sent out by the government for observation, a member of various scientific societies in Europe as well as America, and associate member of the Royal Astronomical Society of England, and well-fitted for the position he was afterwards called to fill,--the directorship of the Lick Observatory. For some time he was also president of the University of California.

Between the years 1880 and 1888 the large astronomical buildings were erected on the top of Mount Hamilton. The main building of red brick consists of two domes, one twenty-five feet and six inches in diameter; the other seventy-six feet in diameter, connected by a hall over one hundred and ninety-one feet long. This hall is paved and wainscoted with marble. The rooms for work and study open towards the east into this hall. The library, a handsome room with white polished ash cases and tables, also opens into it. Near the main entrance is the visitors' room, where the visitors register their names, among them many noted scientists from various parts of the world. J. H. Fickel in the _Chautauquan_, June, 1893, says, "In this room stands the workbench which Mr. Lick used in his trade, that of piano-making, while in Peru. Though not an elaborate affair, nothing attracts the attention of visitors more than this article of furniture."

The large rotating dome at the south end of the building, made by the Union Iron Works of San Francisco, is covered with sheet steel, and the movable parts weigh about eighty-nine tons. It is easily handled by means of a small engine in the basement. The small dome weighs about eight tons.

Near the main building are the meridian circle house, with its instrument for measuring the declination of stars, the transit house, the astronomers' dwellings, the shops, etc.

[Illustration: THE LICK OBSERVATORY.

(Used by courtesy of "The Overland Monthly.")]

In the smaller dome is a twelve-inch equatorial telescope made by Alvan Clark & Sons, mounted at the Lick Observatory in October, 1881. There are also at Mount Hamilton, a six-and-one-half-inch equatorial telescope, a six-and-one-half-inch meridian circle, a four-inch transit and zenith telescope, a four-inch comet-seeker, a five-inch horizontal photoheliograph, the Crocker photographic telescope, and numerous clocks, spectroscopes, chronographs, meteorological instruments, and seismometers for measuring the time and intensity of earthquake shocks.

The buildings and instruments at Mount Hamilton are imbedded in the solid rock, so as not to be affected by the high winds on the top of the mountain.

In the _Century_ for March, 1894, Professor Holden gives an interesting account of earthquakes, and the instruments for measuring them at the Lick Observatory. In the Charleston earthquake of 1886, it is computed that 774,000 square miles trembled, besides a vast ocean area. The effects of the shock were noted from Florida to Vermont, and from the Carolinas to Ontario, Iowa, and Arkansas.

The science of the measurement of earthquakes had its birth in Tokio, Japan, in which country there are, on an average, two earthquake shocks daily. "Every part of the upper crust of the earth is in a state of constant change," says Professor Holden. "These changes were first discovered by their effects on the position of astronomical instruments.... The earthquake of Iquique, a seaport town of South America, in 1877, was shown at the Imperial Observatory near St. Petersburg, an hour and fourteen minutes later, by its effects on the delicate levels of an astronomical instrument. I myself have watched the changes in a hill (100 feet above a frozen lake which was 700 feet distant) as the ice bent and buckled, and changed the pressure on the adjacent shore. The level would faithfully indicate every movement: ...

"In Italy and in Japan microphones deeply buried in the earth make the earth tremors audible in the observatory telephones. During the years 1808-1888 there were 417 shocks recorded in San Francisco. The severest earthquake felt within the city of San Francisco was that of 1868. This shock threw down chimneys, broke glass along miles of streets, and put a whole population in terror." The Lick Observatory has a complete set of Professor Ewing's instruments for earthquake measurements.

Accurate time signals are sent from the Observatory every day at noon, and are received at every railway station between San Francisco and Ogden, and many other cities. The instrumental equipment of the Observatory is declared to be unrivalled.

Interest centres most of all in the great telescope under the rotating dome, for which the 36-inch objective was made with so much difficulty. The great steel tube, a little over 56 feet long, holding the lens, and weighing with all its attachments four and one-half tons, the iron pier 38 feet high, the elaborate yet delicate machinery, were all made by Warner & Swasey of Cleveland, Ohio, whose skill has brought them well-deserved fame. The entire weight of the instrument is 40 tons. Its magnifying power ranges from 180 to 3,000 diameters.

On June 1, 1888, the Observatory, with its instruments, was transferred by the Lick trustees to the University of California. The whole cost was $610,000, leaving $90,000 for endowment out of the $700,000 given by Mr. Lick.

Fourteen years had passed since Mr. Lick made his deed of trust. He lived long enough to see the site chosen and the plans made for the telescope, but died at the Lick House, Oct. 1, 1876, aged eighty. The body lay in state in Pioneer Hall, and on Oct. 4 was buried in Lone Mountain Cemetery, having been followed to the grave by a long procession of State and city officials, faculty and students of the University, and members of the various societies to which Mr. Lick had given so generously.

He had expressed a desire to be buried on Mount Hamilton, either within or near the Observatory. Therefore a tomb was made in the base of the pier of the great 36-inch telescope; "such a tomb," says Professor Holden, "as no Old World emperor could have commanded or imagined."

On Sunday, Jan. 9, 1887, the body of James Lick having been removed from the cemetery, the casket was enclosed in a lead-lined white maple coffin, and laid in the new tomb with appropriate ceremonies, witnessed by a large gathering of people. A memorial document stating that "this refracting telescope is the largest which has ever been constructed, and the astronomers who have used it declare that its performance surpasses that of all other telescopes," was engrossed on parchment in India ink, and signed by the officials. It was then placed between two finely tanned skins, backed by black silk, and soldered in a leaden box eighteen inches in length, the same in width, and one inch in thickness. This was placed upon the iron coffin, and the outer casket was soldered up air-tight. After the vault had been built up to the level of the foundation stone, a great stone weighing two and one-half tons was let down slowly upon the brick-work, beneath which was the casket. Three other stones were placed in position, and then one section was laid of the iron pier, which weighs 25 tons.

Sir Edwin Arnold, who in 1892 went to see the great telescope, and "by a personal pilgrimage to do homage to the memory of James Lick," writes: "With my hand upon the colossal tube, slightly managing it as if it were an opera-glass, and my gaze wandering around the splendidly equipped interior, full of all needful astronomical resources, and built to stand a thousand storms, I think with admiration of its dead founder, and ask to see his tomb. It is placed immediately beneath the big telescope, which ascends and descends directly over the sarcophagus wherein repose the mortal relics of this remarkable man,--a marble chest, bearing the inscription, 'Here lies the body of James Lick.'

"Truly James Lick sleeps gloriously under the bases of his big glass! Four thousand feet nearer heaven than any of his dead fellow-citizens, he is buried more grandly than any king or queen, and has a finer monument than the pyramids furnished to Cheops and Cephrenes."

Mr. Lick wished both to help the world and to be remembered, and his wish has been gratified.

From 1888 to 1893 the Lick telescope, with its 36-inch object-glass, was the largest refracting telescope in the world. The Yerkes telescope, with its 40-inch object-glass, is now the largest in the world. It is on the shore of Lake Geneva, Wis., seventy-five miles from Chicago, and belongs to the Chicago University. It will be remembered by those who visited the World's Fair at Chicago, and saw it in the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building. Professor George E. Hale is the director of this great observatory. The glass was furnished by Mantois of Paris, from which the lenses were made by Alvan G. Clark, the sole survivor of the famous firm of Alvan Clark & Sons. The crown-glass double convex lens weighs 200 pounds; the plano-concave lens of flint glass, nearest the eye end of the telescope, weighs over 300 pounds.

The telescope and dome were made by Warner & Swasey, who made also the 26-inch telescope at Washington, the 18-inch at the University of Pennsylvania, the 10½-inch at the University of Minnesota, the 12-inch at Columbus, Ohio, and others. Of this firm Professor C. A. Young, in the _North American Review_ for February, 1896, says, "It is not too much to say that in design and workmanship their instruments do not suffer in comparison with the best foreign make, while in 'handiness' they are distinctly superior. There is no longer any necessity for us to go abroad for astronomical instruments, which are fully up to the highest standards."

The steel tube of the Yerkes telescope is 64 feet long, and the 90-foot rotating dome, also of steel, weighs nearly 150 tons. The observatory, of gray Roman brick with gray terra-cotta and stone trimmings, is in the form of a Roman cross, with three domes, the largest dome at the western end covering the great telescope. Of the two smaller domes, one will contain a 12-inch telescope, and the other a 16-inch. Professor Young says of the Yerkes telescope, "It gathers three times as much light as the 23-inch instrument at Princeton; two and three-eighths as much as the 26-inch telescopes of Washington and Charlottesville; one and four-fifths as much as the 30-inch at Pulkowa; and 23 per cent more than the gigantic, and hitherto unrivalled, 36-inch telescope of the Lick Observatory. Possibly in this one quality of 'light,' the six-foot reflector of Lord Rosse, and the later five-foot reflector of Mr. Common, might compete with or even surpass it; but as an instrument for seeing things, it is doubtful whether either of them could hold its own with even the smallest of the instruments named above, because of the reflector's inherent inferiority in distinctness of definition."

Professor Young thinks the Yerkes telescope can hardly hope for the exceptional excellence of the "seeing" at Mount Hamilton, Nice, or Ariquipa, at least at night. The magnifying power of the Yerkes telescope is so great, being from 200 to 4,000, that the moon can be brought optically within sixty miles of the observer's eye. "Any lunar object five or six hundred feet square would be distinctly visible,--a building, for instance, as large as the Capitol at Washington."

Since the death of Mr. Lick others have added to his generous gifts for the purchase of special instruments, for sending expeditions to foreign countries to observe total solar eclipses, and the like. Mrs. Phoebe Hearst has given the fund which will yield $2,000 or more each year for Hearst Fellowships in astronomy or other special work. Colonel C. F. Crocker has given a photographic telescope and dome, and provided a sum sufficient to pay the expenses of an eclipse expedition to be sent from Mount Hamilton to Japan, in August, 1896, under charge of Professor Schæberle.

Mr. Edward Crossley, a wealthy member of Parliament for Halifax, England, has given a reflector and forty-foot dome, which reached Mount Hamilton from Liverpool in the latter part of 1895.

Mr. Lick's gift of the telescope has stimulated a love for astronomical study and research, not only in California, but throughout the world. The Astronomical Society of the Pacific was founded Feb. 7, 1889; and any man or woman with genuine interest in the science was invited to join. It has a membership of over five hundred, and its publications are valuable. The society holds its summer meetings on Mount Hamilton. Very wisely, for the sake of diffusing knowledge, visitors are made welcome to Mount Hamilton every Saturday evening between the hours of seven and ten o'clock, to look through the big telescope and through the smaller ones when not in use. In five years, from June 1, 1889, to June 1, 1894, there were 33,715 visitors. Each person is shown the most interesting celestial objects, and the whole force of the Observatory is on duty, and spares no pains to make the visits both interesting and profitable.

James Lick planned wisely when he thought of his great telescope, even if he had no other wish than to be remembered and honored. Undoubtedly he did have other motives; for Professor Holden says, "A very extensive course of reading had given him the generous idea that the future well-being of the race was the object for a good man to strive to forward. Towards the end of his life, at least, the utter futility of his money to give any inner satisfaction oppressed him more and more."