This telescope took a long time to make, and night after night through many a weary month, when station duty was done, father would work at it for hours together in his home-made work-shop. But, as usual, the want of funds hampered him a good deal, and he found many difficulties to overcome; but he worked away with intense enthusiasm, and with the advice of Dr. Blacklock and Mr. Nasmyth, he at last completed this Newtonian equatorial reflecting telescope fitted with a finder with Ramsden eye-piece. He added to it a trap for taking photographs, the invention of his own brain, and in visiting Greenwich Observatory some years later he was pleased to find that the apparatus in use there for the same purpose was almost identical with his own. With this telescope my father photographed the transit of Venus and took also several pictures of the sun and of the moon.
To make his first telescope in 1865 he bought some second-hand lenses for a few shillings, and by means of a turning lathe he turned a stick upon which to roll the tin case, according to the size of the lens.
The second telescope was a much more difficult undertaking for one whose acquaintance with mechanical processes was entirely self-acquired. He was as a man groping in the darkness. To obtain the special glass necessary for the speculum; to grind it to the most delicately accurate shape and density; to polish and silver the speculum; to make the metal tube to the requisite size and scale; to mount it with the necessary adjustments and accuracy; all these were so many enigmas which only his intense enthusiasm and perseverance enabled him to solve.
To grind the speculum of the third telescope a special and very curious tool was necessary, and here Mr. Nasmyth gave father valuable information and sent a drawing of the tool. After making this tool according to Mr. Nasmyth's pattern, father found it applicable to metal specula only, and unsuitable to glass inasmuch as it would not parabolize, or work in the figure of a parabola. This was a great blow. However he eventually surmounted it by using Ross's machine, a description of which he came across; after considerable inquiry. This grinding completed, he succeeded in polishing his speculum with a disc of pitch squares, an apparatus which gave him much thought and trouble. Then came the silvering, and then the rolling and soldering of the tube, which was accomplished by means of a circular block of wood turned in the lathe to the required size. Here another difficulty presented itself, for when it was done, the wood was found immovably fixed inside the tube, and it became necessary to procure a steel augur to bore it out.
However, this taught father something, for in making the next telescope he used a number of laths fixed together and turned in the lathe. One of them was cut through diagonally so that the two parts when separated formed wedge-shaped sections, which could be readily knocked out when the case had been fixed; and thus the whole circular bundle could be easily removed. I know that the building of these telescopes was real hard work, and the difficulties and disappointments they involved were numerous, and were only overcome by sheer hard work and indomitable perseverance. The fourth telescope he had reason to be proud of. He was assisted with the adjustment of this as well as in making the pitch plate with which to polish the speculum by Mr. Newton, a gentleman from Taunton. This was the telescope for which father built the observatory, and it has been described as a real triumph of skill.
Many a time after his day's work was done he would take his magic-lantern and give a lantern lecture on astronomy. He also wrote a paper, "A Letter from the Man in the Moon," which was published in the Exe Valley Magazine. Another paper, "A Journey with Coggia's Comet," appeared in Home Words. Some of his mechanical toys, Stoke Canon Church with its peal of bells, ships rocking on the ocean, and others, have often been shown at church sales of work, and so helped the funds.
CHAPTER VIII
CLOSING YEARS
ON several occasions during the early years at Silverton, my father had trouble with drunken passengers. On one occasion a certain book salesman came to the station and called for a ticket to Exeter, for which he tendered 5d. The parliamentary fare being 7d., my father asked him for the other 2d. The man began to abuse him and got on to the line, and would have been killed by an express, but father jumped down and dragged him back just in time to save both their lives. The man then struck father in the face with his umbrella and swore tremendously. After some trouble father succeeded in placing him outside the station gate and locked him out. The man finally paid 7d. for his ticket, and then threatened to kill father. Of course he was summoned and had to pay heavy fines. Father wrote regarding this case: "If I had caused the death of this man, I should have had to do at least twelve months' hard labour in one of Her Majesty's country mansions, and there would have been two and a half columns in The Times, The Standard, and The Daily Telegraph, expatiating on the carelessness of railway officials; but having saved his life at great risk of my own, I received as complete and satisfactory a blackguarding as it is possible to conceive."