Creighton University

During the year 1890 there was nothing to record except that Professor Sweezey, then at Doane College,  Crete, Nebraska, found his longitude by telephonic connection with our Observatory with Father Joseph's assistance.
On August 24 of that year I was ordained to the priesthood in Woodstock by Cardinal Gibbons.

Upon the completion of my theological course in 1891 I was at the Georgetown College Observatory from May 11 to June 30, and learned from Father Hagen, now director of the Vatican Observatory, how to observe variable stars, This information I proceeded to impart to my brother in Omaha from July 12 to August 20.

Several years now passed without incidents worth recording in the history of the Observatory. There was one event, however, which was a trifle as the time and the recreation of an amateur, but which later on proved to be of prime importance, and this was that on Tuesday, May 2, 1893 at 3:06 p.m. a photograph was taken of the Observatory. This picture eleven years later, as will be narrated in due course, all by itself and mainly by a shadow in it, was made to disclose all its secrets and that in a better and more accurate way than the photographer himself could have done it.

On August 22, 1894 Fr. Joseph Rigge bid good-bye to Omaha. He had been here nine years, during all of which he had taught chemistry and had been in charge of the Observatory, but he taught physics only for four years. He built the Observatory as it is today, that is, the round house or equatorial room, the transit room and the clock vault, and procured for it the Fauth transit, the solar and sidereal clocks and the chronograph with some minor apparatus. Although he was well informed on astronomical matters and could impart his knowledge well and entertainingly, he was not a born astronomer, and the practical handling of measuring instruments with their computations did nor come natural to him, as chemistry did, just as I would say the reverse about myself, although I actually taught chemistry for five years. Then too, as is mentioned with more detail in the Chapter on the Chemical Department, his love for the natural sciences began to slacken and finally to die out. I feel pretty certain that he left the Observatory with little regret. So much so in fact, that when he revisited Omaha three years later he could with difficulty be induced to help me observe the solar eclipse of July 29, 1897, and ten years after that, in 1907, he would not come over to the Observatory at all.

During the next two years the Observatory passed into the hands of two men, one each year, who did no more than use the big telescope for sight seeing, wind the clocks and keep the house in repair. I do not say this because I find fault with their conduct. Not at all, I am merely stating a fact. They did no harm to the transit. While my brother had experimented with several covers for it to protect it against the dust, one of these directors enclosed it in a house of stiff oilcloth with a chimney for the telescope tube. This fitted so closely that it required two men to remove it. As he did not know how to use it, he probably considered this its best protection. I should say that neither knew how to use it, because of one I am certain and of the other I know that, to observe a transit of Mercury on November 10, 1894, he carried the chronometer to the Western Union office in order to find the correction to the time, and had the imprudence to say so in his official report to the Naval Observatory, which I read in print. If something was out of order with the use of his own transit, and I can imagine a dozen things he should have said so. When I wrote to him for an explanation, he would not answer, thereby confirming me in my surmise.

On August 1895 1 went to the Georgetown College Observatory to enter upon what Fr. Hagen, its director, Fr. Hagen, my fellow student in Woodstock, to whom I owed my astronomical education and who was my fellow astronomer, and myself also, considered the work of my life. This was first, the photographic observation of the variation of latitude, which might take two or three years, and then secondly, the photographic determination of the right ascensions of stars, which would be entirely free from personal equation, and bring immortal glory to Georgetown and to the Jesuit Order. But Providence willed otherwise. One of the best oculists in St. Louis, simply because I was then less than forty years old, insisted on my using my distance glasses for close work also. My obedience to his directions was, I believe even now, correct in principle, but he made an enormous mistake. My eyes could not stand the strain, and after three months I broke down so completely that I had to give up all observatory work, and even ordinary reading. I remained in Georgetown until the close of the school year, and did nothing besides teaching higher algebra one hour a day. I was then sent to Omaha, where I arrived on August 28, 1896. It was fully three years before I could begin to use my pen again.

Upon the whole, and I know I have all the readers with me, I have been able to do more with my pen in Omaha than I could have done at Georgetown. So that misdirection of the oculist, which seemed to ruin completely my scientific career, was actually a blessing in disguise. It really did not ruin my scientific career, it merely guided it into a more congenial and effective channel.

The first thing to be done in the Observatory was to make the transit accessible, by removing the tight-fitting stiff cover and replacing it by a curtain which hung from a frame work without touching the instrument, and could be rolled aside by one person. A table was also built about the pier very closely but not in contact with it. Then the transit was critically examined and put into first-class working condition, Electric light, AC 110 volts, was turned on in the Observatory for the first rime on March 27, 1897. The current came from the physics department of the College, into which on account of the very low condition of time exchequer, it had been introduced exclusively on the preceding December 18. The wires were underground, seven of them, in an iron pipe laid by Father Joseph. In subsequent grading a plow had broken this pipe in several places, but the insulation on the wires held out well. On June 14 the driving clock on time equatorial was made to do its duty.

On July 29, 1897 a solar eclipse was observed scientifically for the first time, and gave occasion for the first appearance of the Creighton College Observatory in the Astronomical Journal of August 24 and in Popular Astronomy in September. By this time, September 3, a small converter had been built to supply the current for the one-candlepower lamps used on the transit and elsewhere.

On April 1900 Professor G. D. Swezey, of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, exchanged clock signals with our Observatory in order to obtain his longitude. This time the telephone was used, and every facility was given us by the Nebraska Bell Telephone Company. This telephonic exchange differed from the telegraphic one of August 1887 in that the clock signals were not automatic, but each observer had himself to press the key by hand as he heard the beats of the distant clock in the telephone. As this telephone could, of course, be used for speech also, the conveniences of the method far outweighed its theoretical inferiority.

April 23 was a trial night in spite of the rain. The official exchange of signals took place on April 25 and 30, and on May 1. The following night Professor Swezey came here to observe for personal equation. The method used was that one observer noted the transits of a star over the first three threads, and then the other over the last three, the first and last being properly exchanged in another star. After reducing these transits to the middle wire, the personal equation could at once be seen. Professor Swezey was so delighted with our transit, that he volunteered to do all the necessary computation.

I thereupon gave him my chronograph sheets. When he came home late that night he did not have them. "Now, where could I have lost them?" he began to muse. After some hard thinking, he finally concluded that a restaurant was very probably the place. He hurried back as fast as possible. The servant had just swept the room. But as he had gathered together all kinds of leaving, he could not remember anything that looked like the treasure Professor Swezey was in search of So the latter asked to see the sweepings. When he was shown them, he at once dumped the barrel on the floor. And there, amid banana peelings, tobacco juice and what- not, "What do you think I found?" he wrote me. "Why, those chronograph sheets.

On May 28 1900, there was a total eclipse of the sun visible in the United States on a line drawn from New Orleans to Cape Hatteras, As the preceeding total eclipse visible in this country had occurred eleven years before and the next following one would not occur for eighteen years to come, extraordinary interest was taken in this eclipse by the astronomical world. Expeditions were fitted our by the principal observatories on an elaborate scale, and a large number of college professors joined these expeditions.

Creighton University determined to contribute its share toward the scientific observation of the eclipse, and accordingly sent its astronomer to Washington, Georgia. As time and means were limited, and as the Creighton Observatory instruments were not designed to be portable, their dismounting, packing, shipping and remounting, with the subsequent repetition of all this labor, were out of the question. Accordingly, Father Rigge had to content himself with the Heinrich chronometer belonging to the observatory and a three-inch telescope kindly loaned him by a friend. With this comparatively meager instrumental outfit, he selected a line of work which he judged to be the best and most useful that his equipment admitted of, the observation of the four contacts, that is, of the moments when the moon first began to obscure the solar disk, when the total eclipse began and ended, and when the moon finally withdrew from the sun's face. The correction and rate of his chronometer he obtained from the telegraphic noon signals sent all along the line of totality by the Naval Observatory at Washington, D. C., and the latitude and longitude of his position he determined by connecting it with the eclipse station of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the same town of Washington, Georgia. This Institute had detailed four of its observers for this purpose with a complete instrumental outfit, and they determined their position by star observations extending over several weeks. As soon as they had published their official report, "The Eclipse Expedition of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to Washington, Georgia," in their own organ, the Technology Quarterly, in September, 1900, Father Rigge set to work to reduce his own observations and compare them with their. He embodied his results in an article entitled "The Eclipse Expedition of the Creighton University to Washington, Georgia," which appeared in the same Technology Quarterly in March, 1901. In this technical article, Father Rigge explains his method of observing the eclipse and of determining his latitude and longitude and then compares his results with those obtained by the astronomers from the Institute of Technology. The article is very mathematical throughout and illustrated by diagrams. "Popular Astronomy" No. 86, page 310, calls it "a worthy paper by an interested astronomer."

Of course, the eclipse was written up plentifully in the local papers. There was first a preliminary article in the Bee on May 20, a week before the eclipse. Then a long one in the same paper on June 3, giving an account of what observations had been made by the various parties all along the line of totality. The title, which, as said before, it is the privilege of the editor to write, was "Viewing the Shadowed Sun." How the sun can be shadowed the editor will find it hard to explain. The expression, however, is quite a common one in newspapers. And there was a third article, this time in the World-Herald on January 13, 1901, "Study of the Last Eclipse," based upon the reports of the observing parties.

On account of the great building booms in 1901 when the southwest and north wings, the library, the auditorium and heating plants were erected, a part of the underground pipe leading to the Observatory had to be removed, and two wires for light only were strung on two poles. They came first through what is now the office of the college dean, room 242, but upon the completion of the north wing they were removed to a north window of the present physics lecture room 368. At this time also, April 1901, a Howard clock, which was called a regulator, was removed to the college. This clock had been set up in the southeast corner of the transit room in place of the sidereal clock when this was placed in the vault in 1889. This regulator was in fact a master clock, in that it closed a circuit one second every minute and operated an electric dial, which has ever since faced the main entrance in the college. The clock mentioned was hung up in the physics lecture room and is there yet. It does no active, exterior work anymore, although it is perfectly able to do it, since the new master clock in the dental building after 1921 now operated all the secondary clocks in the dental, law and college buildings.

In 1903 the running gear of the dome was renewed and improved. The old system was certainly wretched. The dome was supported by twelve two-inch pulleys sunk into the wood so that only about a quarter of so inch of the pulley projected. The wood ring of the dome rested on these. Grooves had been worn into the wood, chips of wood had splintered off, and dirt had clogged most of these pulleys so tightly that they could not turn, and it required very great muscular power to move the dome at all. The side thrust was taken up by one-inch pulleys. These also had cut a groove into the wood. One in the northwest had broken off so that the dome could be turned past it only in one direction.

On October 29 the new gear was finished. The two-inch pulleys were replaced by three and three-fourths inch ones, now running on an iron track. The side thrust is also taken by three and three-fourths inch pulleys against an iron band. When this system was first installed and the pulleys were well oiled, one's little finger could actually turn the dame around.

In September 1904 I had the privilege of spending a week at the World's Fair in St. Louis, and of attending the Scientific Congresses. On the 2Oth, under Father Hagen's aegis, I took dinner in the "Tyrolese Alps" with the chief astronomers of the country and a few foreign ones.

On September 24, 1904 the article "When was the Photograph Taken?" appeared in the Scientific American. It showed how the year, day, hour, and even minute of the exposure of a certain photograph of the Observatory had been found from the position of a shadow in the picture. This was 1893 Tuesday, May 2, 3:06 p. m. On June 10, 1935 another article in the same journal gave the exact position of the camera.

In November 1905 the Observatory was suddenly exposed to an unexpected danger its very existence was seriously menaced, and that by so great a man as Father Dowling himself. With the prospect of the early cutting through of 24th street, he intended to shave down the north end of the front lawn as he had done to its south end. The college campus was then bounded on the north by an alley, which is now the roadway next to and south of the present gymnasium. This would have meant a fall of 40 feet in the 300 that separated the nearest corner of the north wing from the northeast corner of the college grounds, so that as the Observatory was midway between these two points, there would have to be a cut here of twenty feet.

The Observatory was therefore an obstruction in the scheme. As there was absolutely no other available site for it, it was to be put on the roof of the college building. Now such a position would have ruined it altogether. In the big telescope every tremor in the building, and much more so, every rumbling of a heavy truck on the streets, which even now makes itself felt by one sitting in a chair on the second floor, and, frequently sets pendant objects swinging visibly, would have made even sight-seeing rather painful than agreeable. And as for the clocks and the transit, their position on the roof of a tall building would have been simply suicidal. For how could a level be used, when the dancing of a star image would displace it capriciously by more than a thousand times the amount that the level was made to measure? And how can a clock keep good time when the vibrations of its pendulum are continually interfered with?

No, what an Observatory needs vitally is a support on terra firma. Give its instruments, and by all means its measuring instruments, a firm foundation. Put them low down to secure this stability. Rather see half the sky well, than all of it poorly. In this decision every professional astronomer will agree. And if the judgment and experience of a professional in his own branch is not to be taken, whose is? Do we not do that in every other case? And if we as educators make it our profession to teach, should we not employ at least essential principles?

Well, thank heaven, the Observatory was not touched. The building and the instruments are still where they were placed. And even the hand of time has not changed the position of the fine Fauth transit by a measurable amount. And how did, it come to pass that the Observatory was spared? The reason is probably this, that although detailed plans had been drawn, Fr. Dowling with his usual business acumen judged it imprudent to lower the college ground below that of the street before its cutting through and its definite grade could be securely relied upon. There was no immediate hurry therefore to remove the Observatory. It might remain until he could issue his final order. This time never came. He was removed from office on February 22, 1908, and it was nearly a year later, January 5, 1909, that the City Council finally made up the mind to open and grade the street. The actual grading, however, did not begin until the following August 2.

On January 1906 the equatorial was taken apart and carried to the Omaha Plating Company to be cleaned and relacquered The mistake had been made at the start of enclosing the long tube and other parts in oiled silk. This had gummed itself tightly on the brass and made it look dirty. The lacquering was not a success. But as the cleaning had been well done, and as not even one of the hundred or more pieces had been lost, the outlay of twenty-five dollars was very moderate. The whole telescope was now provided with a large folding curtain, which can be easily removed and replaced, and which has several times done good duty as an additional protection in a driving rain storm with a leaking roof.

At the suggestion of Professor Swezey, the Lincoln and Omaha students of astronomy exchanged telephonic clock signals on May 21, 1902 in order to obtain their difference of longitude. Having found the correction to our chronometer by the transit of a few stars, we carried it to room 156 in the college where there was a telephone. In sending the signals a student tapped a bell every second in front of the transmitter, and in receiving them he listened to the distant bell and noted the seconds on the chronometer. As the sky over Lincoln was cloudy, the exchange was merely good practice. The results, however, were pretty fair. The carriage of the chronometer to the college building was necessitated by the fact that there were only two wires running to the Observatory, and these were used for light. They were outside and too visible. In August 1902 when the great building boom was over, Fr. Dowling had indeed proposed to put the wires underground. But knowing his propensity for grading, and fearing that the wires would have to be dug up again soon, I declined the offer. I regretted is for seven years, until 1909, when a new grading would have torn them out and necessitated their relaying.

During the month of January 1908 and the preceding Christmas vacation, the old Steward theodolite, which in spite of two falls had done such good work in August 1886, was entirely rehabilitated in the college shop 369. Steel rings had been shrunk on the axis by the Bausch and Lomb Optical Company of Rochester, N. Y., and trued up with an accuracy becoming an astronomical instrument. For this they had charged the moderate price of eleven dollars [in 2000 about $200]. A two-inch objective now replaced the old one and one-fourth one. A new striding level, with one division equal to three seconds, was bought for it. The double-screw micrometer, intended by Steward for the equatorial, was put in as the eyepiece, and provided with whole-turn counters, which, absurd as this may seem, it did not have before. An alidade level was attached, as also a level reading to two seconds, and a shelf for supporting the field-illumination lamp in the reversed position of the axis. The lamp was made electric, so that no naughty winds could blow it out again. Wires were not, however, put in the focus, because this was to be student work during vacation. The whole altazimuth, from being practically worthless, or least to those who are afraid of great inconveniences, is now an excellent instrument, fully worth 600 dollars.[in 2000 about $11,000] Is may be used as a transit in the meridian and in the full prime vertical, and as a zenith telescope. It will be an inexpressible delight to a young astronomer made of the right metal.

On June 17, 1909 a solar eclipse was well observed. The annual college commencement was going on at the time in the auditorium.

As the proposition of opening and grading 24th street between Cass and Burt, and with it the grading of our front lawn, was increasing in certainty every month, the status of the Observatory had to be definitely settled. As the ground about it was to be cut down at least ten feet, the questions were: Shall the Observatory be lowered also, or if nor, shall a retaining wall be built about it, or shall else ground be terraced? And in either case, how will the heavy traffic on the street affect it? Or shall the Observatory he removed to another site on the campus or in the outskirts of the city, or relegated to the roof of the college building, or shall it cease to exist?

These were all very vital questions and called for mature consideration. They were prominent in my mind for many years and were each and all dispassionately weighed and discussed. I will put down briefly the reasons that controlled the final settlement.

And first as to removing the Observatory to another site. At this time, 1909, the campus extended as far as 26th street to the west, but the property between the alley and Burt street where the gymnasium is now, had not yet been secured. As the ground to the west was the athletic field, and there was, and is yet, a steep rise from it to the north lawn, it is evident that there was there, and is now, absolutely no other site for the Observatory than the old one.

Placing the Observatory seventy feet higher on the college building, as said before, would have been absurd and suicidal. Transferring it to the outskirts of the city, as some people suggested, would, on account of its distance from the college, dampen the ardor of its director, render its safeguarding impossible, and on account of the growth of the city, only renew the present difficulties.

On the other hand the old site has every advantage but one. Its extent of visible sky is not equaled by any other Observatory situated like it in the middle of a large city. Its view of the heavens extends to almost the very horizon in all directions except the southwest. And it is only here that a building on the north lawn can curtail it. The only disadvantage of the old site is the probable shaking of the ground by those cars and trucks on 24th street, 75 feet away. The loose texture of the soil, however, it is hoped, will minimize this considerably. At their worst these vibrations cannot begin to compare with those of a high building, as Marquette and Valkenburg prove.

Having decided upon retaining the Observatory at the old sire, the next question was concerning the height. Lowering the building with the many separate foundations of its instruments would be simply impossible. Rebuilding the Observatory would be easier, but this would be deterrent. For first, the instruments would have to be taken to pieces, stored, and afterwards reset and readjusted. Then the parts of the building that could be used again, such as the dome, the piers, the doors and windows with their frames, would be subjected to such rough handling that they would become practically worthless.
And then then, to omit other minor reasons, the delay in the erection of the new Observatory, during which time there would be no Observatory at all, would reopen the whole controversy and put a large question mark upon everything, upon its site, its height, and upon its very existence.

Keeping the Observatory and its instruments intact and building a retaining wall about it, or even only terracing the ground, would do away completely with all difficulties and objections. The expense would surely not be greater, nor would there be the old trouble of the drying-out of the clock vault. And best of all - and this was my own personal secret - the future of the Observatory would be permanently secured. Nor would a subsequent enlargement of the Observatory be prevented. Additions could be put outside of the retaining wall on the lower level.

And even the round house could be expanded for a larger telescope. At present this has an inside diameter of 14 feet for a five-inch equatorial, while the Georgetown twelve inch has a dome of only eighteen feet. The 3 1/2 additional feet could easily he found, should they be called for. But I never flattered myself with the prospect of a larger telescope. A five-inch is large enough for the purpose of instructing students and entertaining visitors, 99 percent of whom have never looked through any telescope at all. And city smoke and electric lights are not congenial to a large telescope. When, therefore, I was told "When I get rich, I'll buy you a larger telescope," I always thought, although courtesy would prevent my giving expression to it, that these words were really only a smart way of saying ""Please excuse me from doing anything now."

The net result of all these considerations was that the Observatory and the instruments were to remain where they were, and a retaining wall built about it, J. Darey, the architect, accordingly began to draw plans.

0n August 2, 1909 the long-expected grading of 24th street began, and on the 5th the college also started to pare down its front line so as to keep pace with the street workers. The front lawn north of the College, and entire north lawn also, were cur down, On August 27 the campus grading was finished. The Observatory was then left standing on a vertical bank ten feet height, so that it could be reached only with a ladder.

During the grading an incomplete skeleton was unearthed on August 11, about ten feet north of the transit room, three feet west of its meridian, and two feet deep. As I happened to write to Father Michael A. Shine, of Plattsmouth, who is well known as a great historian of Nebraska, Iowa and adjacent territory, I told him about this find. To my great surprise he identified the remains as those of M. C. Gaylord, a carpenter, who died in July, 1854. He then quoted the following account from Johnson's History of Nebraska, 1880, published by Henry Gibson, Herald Printing Office, Omaha. "His was the first death among the settlers, He was buried on the ridge a short distance from the house (near the present site of Creighton College), and in June, 1877, while excavating for the Creighton College, his remains were taken up and reburied."

On September 27-30 a trench was dug to the Observatory from the end of the corridor in the north wing, and 152 feet of two 1 1/2 inch conduit pipes laid out for the electric wires. On October 13 the foundations were dug for the Observatory retaining wall. This wall was to be ten feet high above ground and five feet below it. At the top it was to be a foot thick, and have a flaring base of eight feet. This flaring base caused much trouble and anxiety. As the ground was undercut two feet, it had no support, and quite generally fell down in large chunks, in spite of the reiterated assurances of the architect. As the undercut extended almost to the foundation line of the Observatory, I passed many an anxious hour in fear that the whole building would crumble. The southeast end of the transit room did actually sink somewhat, as may be seen even today in the fact that the south window is wider on the top than the bottom.

On October 27, the pouring of the cement began. - It was the general opinion that the reinforcing was needlessly strong, as it consisted of two grids, each having vertical rods a foot apart and horizontal ones eight inches apart. But all the better.

On Sunday morning, November 7 there was an enormous tumble of about ten cubic yards to the north-northwest of the round house. The men came at once and worked all day shoring-up and removing the fallen dirt. And the architect kept on protesting that the ground could not fall.

On November 10 the last section of the foundation was laid. That brought the undercut danger to an end. Two days later the entire foundation was carried up to the ground level.

On November 29 connecting the upper wall began at the northeast corner. About ten feet along the east and also along the north were all that could be finished before December 3, when the work stopped for the winter, It was a mistake to begin it so late in the season. The contractors, Samuel Friedman and James Anderson, were not to blame, They had to put up with vexatious delays in getting their material and their workmen.

During the winter while the ground was frozen hard the Observatory was safe enough. But as spring began about March 1 and was accompanied by heavy rains, the foundations of the building were beginning to be exposed.

On March 14, 1910 work was resumed in such earnest that twenty feet were on that day concreted in the forms that had been set up the preceding November. Two days later the forms of this section were removed, and the ground filled in between the wall and the building.

On April 4 the southwest and last section of the wall was concreted, Two days after this the ground was filled in. The mistake was then made against my protest of simply turning the hose on this filled-in ground without tamping it. This is a lazy and cheap way. The consequence was what I had foreseen, that when the upper walk was concreted, this after some time began to settle unevenly so that the rain water would collect in places and not flow off. This came to be so bad later on nearly half of the walk had to be relaid, and there are even now three faulty places.

By April 22 the steps had also been concreted, so that with them the work came to a close. The concrete work on the Observatory had cost 3500 dollars. This was certainly less than the tearing down of the building and its re-erection would have come to, not to mention the skilled labor required in removing and resetting the instruments.

On May 19 the cables were drawn into the underground conduit pipes. There were seven wires in one pipe, only two being used at the time for electric light, and a lead-covered cable of fifty wires in the other, only about twenty being used by the private telephone line and the chronograph circuit, so that there was plentiful provision for the future. On that same day the overhead wires which had been there for nine years were removed. The batteries were in the college building.

As it was evident that the building of a retaining wall would make all use of the Observatory impossible for many months, the opportunity was seized of putting some much-needed improvements, - they should rather be called essentials - on the equatorial. The large telescope was therefore taken on Noveember 25 to the college shop 369.

As an observatory instrument the Steward equatorial was decidedly an awkward one. It must be said, however, in justification of the maker and the buyer that neither had intended it for such a purpose. It had been made and bought as a physical instrument, to be rolled out on the lawn for occasional sight seeing. Its driving clock and divided circles served no practical purpose, they were to show what such attachments were supposed to do on a permanently mounted equatorial.

The actual awkwardness of the telescope did not therefore become apparent until it was set up in the Observatory. The first and most obvious absurdity - and that is not too strong a word - was that the declination clamp and slow motion screws, which are used oftenest, were entirely beyond the reach of the observer when he had his eye at the telescope. My brother remedied this at once by attaching short rods.

The second was that the declination circle turned with the telescope while its vernier remained stationary, so that one could never know where to look for it. This was corrected later on by exchanging the two disks, so that the vernier is now, as in is with every instrument of the kind, always in the plane of the telescope and visible in all its positions from the eye end.

The third item was that the driving clock was evidently an afterthought of the maker, a possible addition, which served excellently as an advertisement. There was no place to put it. The situation given it on the pier interfered considerably with the telescope when this was in certain positions. The clock should have been put below the mounting, where it is always put, and where it is entirely out of the way.

In the fourth item the maker manifested his good intention but betrayed his unfamiliarity. This was in regard to the clamp and slow motion equatorial. The clamp was beyond the reach of the observer when he was looking through the telescope. The slow motion was controlled by an endless cord which passed through two eyelets and then around a grooved wheel which was in connection with what is called a planetary gearing. The first trouble was that in most positions of the telescope the cord was at too great an angle with the eyelets to work at all. The second was that, as the instrument was of typical English make, strong, massive, and with long bearings, the friction in the polar axis soon became so great that the clock could not drive at all. The only way to force it to do so was to insert a small wooden wedge and so lock the planetary gearing, and then discard the endless cord. To see his star therefore and keep it in the field of view, the observer had to clamp the telescope ahead of the star, to wait until this came where he wanted it and then to turn a thumb screw on the south side of the clock box and release a detent in the wheel work.

While the star could be adjusted up and down very readily by the declination slow motion, there was absolutely no adjustment whatever towards the right and left. Am I exaggerating when I say that such awkwardness soon became intolerable?

The first three defects were not difficult to remedy But the fourth, bringing the clamp and slow motion screws equatorial.  down to the eyepiece, was a problem that called for long and continuous consideration and for mechanical skill that I dared not credit myself with. I therefore wrote to Warner and Swasey, of Cleveland, who had the greatest reputation as makers of telescopes, from the 40-inch Yerkes down to the smallest. They of course wanted measurements and photographs, and indicated 150 dollars as a rough preliminary estimate. As I was sure that the whole telescope would have to be shipped to them, and feared that the assigned cost might easily be doubled in reality, I determined to attack the problem myself. Very much time and labor were spent upon it, and many a brilliant idea was wrecked in encountering the existing construction. However, the work was done, and although it bears the thumbmarks of having been homemade, it proved to be a decided success. For the details the reader is referred to the article "The Driving Clock and the Clamp and Slow Motion Screws of an Equatorial" in Popular Astronomy xx, 551-561, November, 1912.

My actual expenses totaled only about twenty dollars, seven of which went to an expert machinist for cutting gears. I had constructed wood patterns and then had brass castings made, which I turned to shape on the lathe.

While the five-inch lens of the Steward equatorial is fairly good, not the equal, however, of the three-inch in the Fauth transit, there is one contrivance for which the maker deserves great praise. This is that at the lower end of the polar axis the circle is provided with a double graduation and turns with the axis. A milled head sets this circle so that its lower vernier, which is permanently secured to the axis, reads the star's right ascension. When the telescope, after having been adjusted in declination, is now swung around until the stationary upper vernier indicates the sidereal time, the star is in the field of view. While this contrivance it now put on every equatorial, it was somewhat unusual at the time that ours was bought. Students learn to use the circles quite readily and take great delight in setting them and seeing their star in the middle of the field of view.