Creighton University

The improvement on the large telescope was finished on Match 10, 1910, but it could not be returned to the Observatory until April 7. Even before this time Halley's comet was beginning to claim attention. The first view of it through the telescope was had as early as March 2, on the third floor of the college. I knew the hot air rushing our of the window would set the image "boiling" in a most unsatisfactory way, but I thought t prudent to yield to the demands of the "mob" and let them see for themselves.

On April 20 from 4:10 to 4:40 a. m. another eager ""mob" drove me to the Observatory to find the comet for them, and likewise on the 23rd at the same early hour. But on both occasions we could not see it, while tip [up] at the City High School it was seen. This I attributed to the fact that the comet was loss" [low?] down, in the sky and in a fog, while the High School hill was above the fog. The same thing happened to observers its St. Louis. On April 28th 1 had my first view of Halley's comet, the head alone being visible. On May 4th from 3:45 to 4:00 a. m. there was another eager crowd to see the comet. On the 12th and 13th the comet presented a fine sight, with a tail thirty degrees long. On the 18th the tail had grown to 110 degrees. The night following the 18th the earth was expected to pass through the tail of the comet. There was great excitement all over the world.

To quiet the city I had two days before given 17 reasons for not fearing the comet. Some people, and Fr. John Kelly among them, passed the whole night near the Observatory waiting for things that did not happen. The net result of their wake was a clogging of the drain pipes with their matches and cigar stumps. The faculty, and the students in the "Beanery" went about it more reasonably. They portioned the hours among them. All had orders no [to] wake me if anything unusual happened. And as for myself I slept all night, because I was convinced that nothing would happen, and nothing did.
On the following night, the 19th, there were great crowds at the Observatory. But the sky was cloudy and there was nothing to see.

On Monday, May 23rd the sky was at its best. The comet was seen as early as 8:25 p. m. The crowd was enormous. People stood in line for two hours and a half. They could be admitted only through one south door, and had to make their exit through the north window. To add to the interest, the moon was totally eclipsed from 11:09 to midnight. Its color was then a beautiful red, the best I have ever seen. The comet's tail was sixty degrees long. The head set at 10:58.

It would have been a bootless task to try and convince these people that the naked-eye view of the coiner in its entirety was better than the telescopic one of its head only. I was forced to yield to the popular demand. I remember a lady who took only one glimpse through the telescope and wished to come down at once from the observing chair. When I urged her to take her chance of a lifetime and look longer, she declined. She had seen the comet through the Creighton College telescope, and that was satisfaction enough for the rest of her days.

And what profit did I reap from the labor? Well, I hope my Guardian Angel was standing beside me all the rime [time] with his notebook and his pencil in hand. Of course, the College and myself gained a great deal in popular favor, but this is a fickle recompense. Otherwise the visible net gain was two cigars.

On the two following nights, the 24th and 25th, the crowd diminished, and the moon interfered considerably. About June 11 the comet disappeared to the naked eye.

On August 2, 1910 an accident happened in the Observatory which at first sight it would seem ridiculously silly even to mention. But it emphasized the statement often made that enormous consequences may result from the loss of trifles. This accident was that the Fauth transit had lost some of its cobwebs!

In the description of this instrument it was said that threads or wires, which are often only cobwebs, were put into its focus so that transits of stars across them could be recorded on the chronograph. These wires make a telescope a measuring instrument. They show that a star moves - apparently at least, because it is the earth that really moves - and that even fractions of a second can thus be measured and the rime he found accurately. Without such wires the telescope can only see, it cannot measure. These wires are therefore essential, even should they be only cobwebs.

Well, Fr. Tenk was spending July and August at the Observatory. He had had already the experience of two vacations, 1905 and 1906, so that I could rely on him. He put into the transit an eyepiece that I never used. It went in too far and tore some of the threads. I cannot in the least blame him for the accident because the same might have happened to me. But I do blame the maker who should have made such an accident impossible. The result was a general tie-up of the Observatory, except sight-seeing with the equatorial. The transit was dead, the chronograph idle, and the clocks could not be trusted.

The whole reticule had to be renewed. But it took us a whole week to find the right kind of a cobweb. Why? Because one kind is made up of loose strands like a torn rope, a second is beaded, a third too fine for the eyes to see, and so on.

If Fr. Tenk was at fault, he made noble amends for it. He not only put in the reticule which has remained to this day, but also put a similar one into the Fauth altazitnuth [altazimuth?] which has been waiting for two years and a half for just such an able and willing student. This instrument could now be used for the first time since its improvement in 1908. It was tested on August 11 as a zenith telescope on Pi and Iota Heruclis.

The accident narrated gave occasion to write the article "The Value of a Cobweb" which first appeared in St. Michael's Almanac of 1912, published in Techny, Illinois, in July 1911, and then in the Omaha Bee on August 6, 1911 and in the Scientific American Supplement of October 17, 1911. Of course, a repetition of this accident was guarded against by putting a wire ring on the guilty eyepiece so that it could not be pushed too far in again. Some years afterwards it was feared that this wire ring might slip off or be taken off by one not aware of the danger he would incur. The wire was then soldered on. Anybody that now removes the wire and the solder does so at his own peril.

The front retaining wall, which extends 426 feet along 24th street from California to the alley between Webster and Burt, and has a height above grounds ef [of] from four feet at the southern end to twenty nine at the northern, was begun on June 7, 1910 and finished some time in September. The Webster street steps, twenty-nine feet high in three flights, were completed on October 1. The concrete was reinforced, and the wall was given several good anchorages so as to stand firmly against the pressure of the high grounds of the front lawn especially in prolonged wet weather. The work cost 17,500 dollars. It was well done, and has never developed any defects.

While at first some members of the faculty condemned the high blank wall as an eyesore to the property owners across the street, sixteen and more years of experience, during which the property across the street has net received the slightest improvement except a little grading in one place, have continuously approved of the wall as giving the resident faculty all the necessary and desirable privacy. To see what this means, one need but stand at the main entrance or on the circular driveway around the fountain, and see for himself how these places are exposed to the full gaze of everybody on California street for a distance of 150 feet.

Then let him walk a short distance, say only thirty feet, north, and see how private his entire horizon is, even towards California street. The whole of 24th street with its endless succession of cars and trucks and vehicles and pedestrians, is hidden from view, not only by the slope but also by a hedge. In addition, the north part of the lawn front is as level as the north lawn, and admirably adapted for walking and strolling. And all these advantages, or rather necessities, would have been forever impossible by Fr. Dowling's plan.

The walk that parallels the front of the College buildings has since the beginning in 1878 served as a short cut from Webster street, or even Burt street, to 25th and California. The height of the Webster street steps diminished this undesirable imposition very considerably, although it did not entirely prevent it. As it was noticed that dubious characters used these steps at night, an iron gate was put on them, which was first locked only at night and then permanently. This secured sot [our?] privacy all the more. It was also a benefit to the Observatory, as it put it in a corner entirely out of the approaches to the building.

It was said before that retaining the Observatory upon its old site had every advantage but one, and this was the probable shaking of the ground by the heavy traffic on the street. Most fortunately this one disadvantage turned out to be negligibly small. It is only during the few seconds that a street car is passing its neatest [nearest] point that I can detect a slight quiver in a star image. Nobody else has ever noticed it, not even Professor Swezey, even when his attention was directed to it.

This fact does not contradict the statement made before concerning the vibrations on the college roof. There the shaking would be magnified by the height, by the rumbling of the water pipes, by people moving about, by glee club, orchestra and band practice, by the elevator, and by high walls which in all of Fr. Dowling's buildings had their minimum thickness and bracing.

In the Observatory the instruments are all firmly mounted on terra firma, low down, and on their own separate foundations. The vibrations from the street must therefore first attack the massive retaining wall, and then the building, before their exhausted efforts can reach the instruments.

As the finances of the University, since the distribution of the Creighton estate on March 27, 1908, were in their most flourishing condition, and especially as its president, Fr. Magevney, was a person who liked to see everything spic and span, the season was judged to be opportune for the improvement of the interior of the Observatory. The brick work had never been painted, and although the brick was pressed, it was not plastered, and gave the interior a somewhat somber and depressing appearance. The gas pipes, and later on the electric wire moldings, were too visible and were anything but artistic. The Observatory was now to be renovated in such a way as to deserve the appellation I have always delighted to use, "The Gem of the Institution."

The beginning was made by securing the services of Paul Kosak, a carpenter, after a considerable delay. He was an excellent workman and took great interest in what he did. He had one failing, and he knew it. He liked to talk and gossip, but to his credit be it said, whenever he realized that he had wasted some time, he made up for it by working after hours. He put the doors and windows and all the woodwork in prime condition and made ready for the steel platers who were to follow him. The clumsy exterior and too visible contrivance for opening the transit roof shutters was changed to a simpler interior one. The dome shutter was also much improved. The two pairs of iron pipes which had supported the clocks before the vault was built, were removed entirely.

On August 31 the platers began their work. I had selected what I judged to be the most elegant design that the Carter Coriaice [Cornice?] Company had to offer, with the assistance, of course, of its own experts. By September 21 the plating was finished.

The third step consisted in Mr. Kleyla's sending me his best painter, Felix Bouwens, who was a real artist. His work extended from September 26 to October 17. How well he did it, has been the universal praise of every visitor that has an eye at all for beauty.

Other interior improvements consisted in a marble switchboard, new curtains on the equatorial and the transit, curtains in the round house so that all city lights can be  excluded, brackets for electric lamps in convenient places, connections at both instruments and on the outside north and south piers for the chronograph and for small and large electric lamps, and so forth. Only one who has for many years done without these conveniences or necessities can form an adequate idea of them.

The final improvement was the painting of the outside of the Observatory, walls and roof and dome and even iron railing, all with the same uniform gray stone color, which at once added immensely to its appearance. Let me add here as a matter of history that from June 1, 1898 to August 29, 1899 the dome had been painted in the colors of the American flag, the sections being alternately red and white and the shutter blue with white stars. This was intended by the College authorities as a sop to the A. P. A's. Whether they accepted it as such, I do not know. The walls also would have been similarly painted if I had not protested against this further caricaturing of a scientific building. I am happy to state that during all this time no photograph was taken of the Observatory.