"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.