At the end of August, 1885, this temporary arrangement expired, and the enterprise could not be carried on unless the support of the same was undertaken by the Union. On March 27, 1885, the Bundesversammlung decided to take the necessary steps. Mr. Fritz Brunner, who died May 1, 1885, left a large legacy for the enterprise, making it possible to build a special observatory.
For this purpose the northeast corner of the highest rocky peak was blasted out and the building was so placed that the wall of rock at the rear formed an excellent protection from the high west winds. By the first of October, last year, the building was ready for occupancy, and there was a quiet opening at which Mr. Potch, director of the Blue Hill Observatory, near Boston, and others were present.
The building is 26 feet long, 19 feet deep, and 30 feet high, and is very solid and massive, having been built of the limestone blasted from the rock. It consists of a ground floor containing the telegraph office, the observers' work room, and the kitchen and store rooms; the first story, in which are the living and sleeping rooms for the observers and their assistants; and the second story, living and sleeping rooms for visiting scientists who come to make special observations, and a reserve room. The barometer and barograph are placed in the second story, at a height of about 8,202 feet above the level of the sea, whereas in the hotel they were only about 8,093 feet above the sea level. The flat roof, of wood and cement, which extends very little above the plateau of the mountain top, is admirably adapted for making observations in the open air. All the rooms in the house are ceiled with wood, and the walls and floors of the ground floor and first story and the ceilings of the second story are covered with insulating material. The cost of the building, including the equipments, amounted to about $11,200.
The fact that since the erection of the Santis station there has been a still higher station constructed on Sonnblick (10,137 feet high) does not decrease the value of the former, for the greater the number of such elevated stations, the better will be the meteorological investigations of the upper air currents. The present observer at Santis is Mr. C. Saxer, who has endured the hardships and privations of a long winter at the station.
The anemometer house, which is shown in our illustration, is connected with the main house by a tunnel. Several times during the day records are taken of the barometer, the thermometer, the weather vane, as well as notes in regard to the condition of the weather, the clouds, fall of rain or snow, etc. A registering aneroid barometer marks the pressure of the atmosphere hourly, and two turning thermometers register the temperature at midnight and at four o'clock in the morning.—Illustrirte Zeitung.
THE CARE OF THE EYES.[1]
By Prof. David Webster, M.D.
"The light of the body is the eye." Of all our senses, sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell, the sight is that which seems to us the most important. Through the eye, the organ of vision, we gain more information and experience more pleasure, perhaps, than through any or all our other organs of sense. Indeed, we are apt to depreciate the value of our other senses when comparing them to the eyesight. It is not uncommon to hear a person say, "I would rather die than be blind." But no one says, "I would rather die than lose my hearing." As a matter of fact, the person who is totally blind generally appears to be more cheerful, happier, than one who is totally deaf. Deaf mutes are often dull, morose, quick tempered, obstinate, self-willed, and difficult to get along with, while the blind are not infrequently distinguished for qualities quite the reverse. It is worthy of remark that the eye is that organ of sense which is most ornamental as well as useful, and the deprivation of which constitutes the most visible deformity. But it is unnecessary to enter into a comparison of the relative value of our senses or the relative misfortune of our loss of any one of them. We need them all in our daily struggle for existence, and it is necessary to our physical and mental well-being, as well as to our success in life, that we preserve them all in as high a degree of perfection as possible. We must not lose sight of the fact that all our organs of sense are parts of one body, and that whatever we do to improve or preserve the health of our eyes cannot do harm to any other organ. We shall be able to "take care of our eyes" more intelligently if we know something of their structure and how they perform their functions. The eye is a hollow globe filled with transparent material and set in a bony cavity of the skull, which, with the eyelids and eyelashes, protect it from injury. It is moved at will in every direction by six muscles which are attached to its surface, and is lubricated and kept moist by the secretions of the tear gland and other glands, which secretions, having done their work, are carried down into the nose by a passage especially made for the purpose—the tear duct. We are all familiar with the fact that our eyes are "to see with," but in order to be able to take care of our eyes intelligently, it is necessary to understand as far as possible how to see with them.