Famous Givers and Their Gifts

by Sarah Knowles Bolton

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.

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: ...