He requested that, for simplicity in conference, the preliminary terms should be made with but a single member of the firm to talk with. George B. Clark, the eldest member, was sent up to represent the firm. I was asked to take part in the negotiations as a mutual friend of both parties, and suggested the main conditions of the contract. A summary of these will be found in the publication to which I have already referred.
There was one provision the outcome of which was characteristic of Alvan Clark & Sons. Struve, in testing some object glasses which they had constructed and placed in their temporary tube, found so great physical exertion necessary in pointing so rough an instrument at any heavenly body with sufficient exactness, that he could not form a satisfactory opinion of the object glass. As he was to come over again when the glass was done, in order to test it preliminary to acceptance, he was determined that no such difficulty should arise. He therefore made a special provision that $1000 extra, to be repaid by him, should be expended in making a rough equatorial mounting in which he could test the instrument. George Clark demurred to this, on the ground that such a mounting as was necessary for this purpose could not possibly cost so much money. But Struve persistently maintained that one to cost $1000 should be made. The other party had to consent, but failed to carry out this provision. The tube was, indeed, made large enough to test not only Struve's glass but the larger one of the Lick Observatory, which, though not yet commenced, was expected to be ready not long afterward. Yet, notwithstanding this increase of size, I think the extra cost turned out to be much less than $1000, and the mounting was so rough that when Struve came over in 1883 to test the glass, he suffered much physical inconvenience and met, if my memory serves me aright, with a slight accident, in his efforts to use the rough instrument.
In points like this I do not believe that another such business firm as that of the Clarks ever existed in this country or any other. Here is an example. Shortly before the time of Struve's visit, I had arranged with them for the construction of a refined and complicated piece of apparatus to measure the velocity of light. As this apparatus was quite new in nearly all its details, it was impossible to estimate in advance what it might cost; so, of course, they desired that payment for it should be arranged on actual cost after the work was done. I assured them that the government would not enter into a contract on such terms. There must be some maximum or fixed price. This they fixed at $2500. I then arranged with them that this should be taken as a maximum and that, if it was found to cost less, they should accept actual cost. The contract was arranged on this basis. There were several extras, including two most delicate reflecting mirrors which would look flat to the eye, but were surfaces of a sphere of perhaps four miles diameter. The entire cost of the apparatus, as figured up by them after it was done, with these additions, was less than $1500, or about forty per cent. below the contract limit.
No set of men were ever so averse to advertising themselves. If anybody, in any part of the world, wanted them to make a telescope, he must write to them to know the price, etc. They could never be induced to prepare anything in the form of a price catalogue of the instruments they were prepared to furnish. The history of their early efforts and the indifference of our scientific public to their skill forms a mortifying chapter in our history of the middle of the century. When Mr. Clark had finished his first telescope, a small one of four inches aperture, which was, I have no reason to doubt, the best that human art could make, he took it to the Cambridge Observatory to be tested by one of the astronomers. The latter called his attention to a little tail which the glass showed as an appendage of a star, and which was, of course, non-existent. It was attributed to a defect in the glass, which was therefore considered a failure. Mr. Clark was quite sure that the tail was not shown when he had previously used the glass, but he could not account for it at the time. He afterwards traced it to the warm air collecting in the upper part of the tube and producing an irregular refraction of the light. When this cause was corrected the defect disappeared. But he got no further encouragement at home to pursue his work. The first recognition of his genius came from England, the agent being Rev. W. R. Dawes, an enthusiastic observer of double stars, who was greatly interested in having the best of telescopes. Mr. Clark wrote him a letter describing a number of objects which he had seen with telescopes of his own make. From this description Mr. Dawes saw that the instruments must be of great excellence, and the outcome of the matter was that he ordered one or more telescopes from the American maker. Not until then were the abilities of the latter recognized in his own country.
I have often speculated as to what the result might have been had Mr. Clark been a more enterprising man. If, when he first found himself able to make a large telescope, he had come to Washington, got permission to mount his instrument in the grounds of the capitol, showed it to members of Congress, and asked for legislation to promote this new industry, and, when he got it, advertised himself and his work in every way he could, would the firm which he founded have been so little known after the death of its members, as it now unhappily is? This is, perhaps, a rather academic question, yet not an unprofitable one to consider.
In recent years the firm was engaged only to make object glasses of telescopes, because the only mountings they could be induced to make were too rude to satisfy astronomers. The palm in this branch of the work went to the firm of Warner & Swasey, whose mounting of the great Yerkes telescope of the University of Chicago is the last word of art in this direction.
During the period when the reputation of the Cambridge family was at its zenith, I was slow to believe that any other artist could come up to their standard. My impression was strengthened by a curious circumstance. During a visit to the Strasburg Observatory in 1883 I was given permission to look through its great telescope, which was made by a renowned German artist. I was surprised to find the object glass affected by so serious a defect that it could not be expected to do any work of the first class. One could only wonder that European art was so backward. But, several years afterward, the astronomers discovered that, in putting the glasses together after being cleaned, somebody had placed one of them in the wrong position, the surface which should have been turned toward the star being now turned toward the observer. When the glass was simply turned over so as to have the right face outward, the defect disappeared.
[1] In justice to Mr. Blank, I must say that there seems to have been some misunderstanding as to his observations. What he had really seen and observed was a star long well known, much more distant from Procyon than the companion in question.
[2] Otto Struve was a brother of the very popular Russian minister to Washington during the years 1882-92. He retired from the direction of the Pulkowa Observatory about 1894. The official history of his negotiations and other proceedings for the construction of the telescope will be found in a work published in 1889 in honor of the jubilee of the observatory.