James Lick, one of the great givers of the West, was born in Fredericksburg, Penn., Aug. 25, 1796. Little is known of his early life, except that his ancestors were Germans, and that he was born in poverty. His grandfather served in the Revolutionary War. James learned to make organs and pianos in Hanover, Penn., and in 1819 worked for Joseph Hiskey, a prominent piano manufacturer of Baltimore.

One day Conrad Meyer, a poor lad, came into the store and asked for work. Young Lick gave him food and clothing, and secured a place for him in the establishment. They became fast friends, and continued thus for life. Later Conrad Meyer was a wealthy manufacturer of pianos in Philadelphia.

James Lick in 1820, when he was twenty-four, went to New York, hoping to begin business for himself, but finding his capital too limited, in the following year, 1821, went to Buenos Ayres, South America, where he lived for ten years. At the end of that time he went to Philadelphia, and met his old friend Conrad Meyer. He had brought with him for sale $40,000 worth of hides and nutria skins. The latter are obtained from a species of otter found along the La Plata River.

He intended settling in Philadelphia, and rented a house on Eighth Street, near Arch, but soon abandoned his purpose, probably because the business outlook was not hopeful, and returned to Buenos Ayres to sell pianos. From the east side of South America he went to the west side, and remained in Valparaiso, Chili, for four years. He spent eleven years in Peru, making and selling pianos. Once, when his workmen left him suddenly to go to Mexico, rather than break a contract he did all the work himself, and accomplished it in two years.

In 1847 he went to San Francisco, which had only one thousand inhabitants. He was then about fifty years old, and took with him over $30,000, which, foreseeing California's wonderful prospects, he invested in land in San Francisco, and farther south in Santa Clara Valley.

JAMES LICK.

(Used by courtesy of "The Overland Monthly.")

In 1854, to the surprise of everybody, the quiet, parsimonious James Lick built a magnificent flour-mill six miles from San JosÉ. He tore down an old structure, and erected in its place a mill, finished within in solid mahogany highly polished, and furnished it with the best machinery possible. It was called "The Mahogany Mill," or more frequently "Lick's Folly." He made the grounds about the mill very attractive. "Upon it," says the San JosÉ Daily Mercury, June 28, 1888, "he began early to set out trees of various kinds, both for fruit and ornament. He held some curious theories of tree-planting, and believed in the efficiency of a bone deposit about the roots of every young tree. Many are the stories told by old residents of James Lick going along the highway in an old rattletrap, rope-tied wagon, with a bearskin robe for a seat cushion, and stopping every now and then to gather in the bones of some dead beast. People used to think him crazy until they saw him among his beloved trees, planting some new and rare variety, and carefully mingling about its young roots the finest of loams with the bones he had gathered during his lonely rides.

"There is a story extant, and probably well-founded, which illustrates the odd means he employed to secure hired help at once trustworthy and obedient. One day while he was planting his orchard a man applied to him for work. Mr. Lick directed him to take the trees he indicated to a certain part of the grounds, and then to plant them with the tops in the earth and the roots in the air. The man obeyed the directions to the letter, and reported in the evening for further orders. Mr. Lick went out, viewed his work with apparent satisfaction, and then ordered him to plant the trees the proper way and thereafter to continue in his employ." Nineteen years after Mr. Lick built his mill, Jan. 16, 1873, he surprised the people of San JosÉ again, by giving it to the Paine Memorial Society of Boston, half the proceeds of sale to be used for a Memorial Hall, and half to sustain a lecture course. He had always been an admirer of Thomas Paine's writings. The mill was annually inundated by the floods from the Guadalupe River, spoiling his orchards and his roads, so that he tired of the property.

An agent of the Boston Society went to California, sold the mill for $18,000 cash, and carried the money back to Boston. Mr. Lick was displeased that the property which had cost him $200,000 should be sold at such a low price, and without his knowledge, as he would willingly have bought it in at $50,000.

It is said by some that Mr. Lick built his mill as a protest against the cheap and flimsy style of building on the Pacific Coast, but it is much more probable that he built it for another reason. In early life it is believed that young Lick fell in love with the daughter of a well-to-do miller for whom he worked. When the young man made known his love, which was reciprocated by the girl, the miller was angry, and is said to have replied, "Out, you beggar! Dare you cast your eyes upon my daughter, who will inherit my riches? Have you a mill like this? Have you a single penny in your purse?"

To this Lick replied "that he had nothing as yet, but one day he would have a mill beside which this one would be a pigsty."

Lick caused his elegant mill to be photographed without and within, and sent the pictures to the miller. It was, however, too late to win the girl, if indeed he ever hoped to do so; for she had long since married, and Mr. Lick went through life a lonely and unresponsive man. He never lived in his palatial mill, but occupied for a time a humble abode near by.

After Mr. Lick disposed of his mill, he began to improve a tract of land south of San JosÉ known as "The Lick Homestead Addition." "Day after day," says the San JosÉ Mercury, "long trains of carts and wagons passed slowly through San JosÉ carrying tall trees and full-grown shrubbery from the old to the new location. Winter and summer alike the work went on, the old man superintending it all in his rattletrap wagon and bearskin robe. His plans for this new improvement were made regardless of expense. Tradition tells that he had imported from Australia rare trees, and in order to secure their growth had brought with them whole shiploads of their native earth. He conceived the idea of building conservatories superior to any on the Pacific Coast, and for that purpose had imported from England the materials for two large conservatories after the model of those in the Kew Gardens in London. His death occurred before he could have these constructed; and they remained on the hands of the trustees until a body of San Francisco gentlemen contributed funds for their purchase and donation to the use of the public in Golden Gate Park, where they now stand as the wonder and delight of all who visit that beautiful resort."

Mr. Lick also built in San Francisco a handsome hotel called the Lick House. With his own hands he carved some of the rosewood frames of the mirrors. He caused the walls to be decorated with pictures of California scenery. The dining-room has a polished floor made of many thousand pieces of wood of various kinds.

When Mr. Lick was seventy-seven years old, and found himself the owner of millions, with a laudable desire to be remembered after death, and a patriotism worthy of high commendation, he began to think deeply how best to use his property.

On Feb. 15, 1873, Mr. Lick offered to the California Academy of Sciences a piece of land on Market Street, the site of its present building. Professor George Davidson, then president of the academy, called to thank him, when Mr. Lick unfolded to him his purpose of giving a great telescope for future investigation of the heavenly bodies. He had become deeply interested from reading, it is said, about possible life on other planets. It is supposed by some that while Mr. Lick lived his lonely life in Peru, a priest, who gained his friendship, interested him in astronomy. Others think his mind was drawn towards it by reading about the Washington Observatory, completed in 1874, and noticed widely by the press.

Mr. Lick was not a scientist nor an astronomer; he had been too absorbed in successful business life for that; but he earned money that others might have the time and opportunity to devote their lives to science.

Mr. Lick appears to have had a passion for statuary, as shown by his gifts. At one time he thought of having expensive memorial statues of himself and family erected on the heights overlooking the ocean and the bay, but was dissuaded by one of his pioneer friends, according to Miss M. W. Shinn's account in the Overland Monthly, November, 1892.

"Mr. D. J. Staples felt it his duty to tell Mr. Lick frankly that his bequests for statues of himself and family would be utterly useless as a memorial; that the world would not be interested in them; and when Mr. Lick urged that such costly statues would be preserved for all time, as the statues of antiquity now remained the precious relics of a lost civilization, answered, almost at random, 'More likely we shall get into a war with Russia or somebody, and they will come around here with warships, and smash the statues to pieces in bombarding the city.'"

Mr. Lick conferred with his friends, but had his own decided wishes and plans which usually he carried out. On July 16, 1874, he conveyed all his property, real and personal, over $3,000,000, by deed of trust to seven men; but becoming dissatisfied with some members of the Board of Lick Trustees, he made a new deed, Sept. 21, 1875, under which his property has been used as he directed. A year later he changed some of the members, but the deed itself remained as before.

One of the first bequests under his deed of trust was for the telescope and observatory, $700,000. Another, to the Protestant Orphan Asylum of San Francisco, $25,000.

For an Orphan Asylum in San JosÉ, "free to all orphans without regard to creed or religion of parents," $25,000.

To the Ladies' Protective and Belief Society of San Francisco, $25,000.

To the Mechanics' Institute of San Francisco, "to be applied to the purchase of scientific and mechanical works for such Institute," $10,000.

To the Trustees of the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, of San Francisco, $10,000, with the hope expressed by him, "that the trustees of said society may organize such a system as will result in establishing similar societies in every city and town in California, to the end that the rising generations may not witness or be impressed with such scenes of cruelty and brutality as constantly occur in this State."

To found in San Francisco "an institution to be called The Old Ladies' Home," $100,000. For the erection and the maintenance of that extremely useful public charity, Free Public Baths, $150,000. These baths went into use Nov. 1, 1890.

For the erection of a monument to be placed in Golden Gate Park, "to the memory of Francis Scott Key, the author of 'The Star-Spangled Banner,'" $60,000. This statue was unveiled July 4, 1888.

To endow an institution to be called the California School of Mechanical Arts, "to be open to all youths born in California," $540,000.

For statuary emblematical of three important epochs in the history of California, to be placed in front of the San Francisco City Hall, $100,000.

To John H. Lick, his son, born in Pennsylvania, June 30, 1818, $150,000. The latter contested the will; and a compromise was effected whereby he received $533,000, the expense of the suit being a little over $60,000. This son, at his death, founded Lick College, Fredericksburg, Penn., giving it practically all his fortune. It is now called Schuylkill Seminary, and had 285 pupils in 1893, according to the Report of the Commissioner of Education. A family monument was erected at Fredericksburg, Penn., Mr. Lick's birthplace, at a cost of $20,000.

Mr. Lick set aside some personal property for his own economical use during his life. After all these bequests had been attended to, the remainder of his fortune was to be given in "equal proportions to the California Academy of Sciences and the Society of California Pioneers," to be expended in erecting buildings for them, and in the purchase of a "suitable library, natural specimens, chemical and philosophical apparatus, rare and curious things useful in the advancement of science, and generally in the carrying out of the objects and purposes for which said societies were respectively established." Each society has received about $800,000 from the Lick estate. These were very remarkable gifts from a man who had been a mechanic, brought up in narrow circumstances, and with limited education.

The California School of Mechanical Arts was opened in January, 1895, and now, in the spring of 1896, has 230 pupils. The substantial brick buildings are in Spanish architecture, and cost, with machinery and furniture, about $115,000, leaving $425,000 for endowment. The Academic Building is three stories high, and the shops one and two stories. The requirements for pupils in entering the school are substantially the same as for the last of the grammar grades of the public schools. There is no charge for tuition.

Mr. Lick in making this bequest stated its object: "To educate males and females in the practical arts of life, such as working in wood, iron, and stone, or any of the metals, and in whatever industry intelligent mechanical skill now is or can hereafter be applied."

In view of this desire on the part of the giver, a careful survey of industrial education was made; and it was decided to "give each student a thorough knowledge of the technique of some one industrial pursuit, from which he may earn a living."

The school course is four years. At the beginning of the third year the student must choose his field of work for the last year and a half, and give his time to it. Besides the ordinary branches, carpentry, forging, moulding, machine and architectural drawing, wood-carving, dressmaking, millinery, cookery, etc., are taught. It is expected that graduates will be able to earn good wages at once after leaving the school, and the teachers endeavor to find suitable situations for their pupils.

Miss Caroline Willard Baldwin, at the head of the science department, who is herself a Bachelor of Science from the University of California, and a Doctor of Science from Cornell University, writes me: "The grade of work is much the same as that given in the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and the entire equipment of the school is excellent."

The Lick Bronze Statuary at the City Hall in San Francisco was unveiled on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, Nov. 29, 1894. Mr. Lick had specified in his deed of trust that it should "represent by appropriate designs and figures the history of California; first, from the early settlement of the Missions to the acquisition of California by the United States; second, from such acquisition by the United States to the time when agriculture became the leading interest of the State; third, from the last-named period to the first day of January, 1874." He knew that there is no more effective way to teach history and inculcate love of city and nation than by object-lessons. A great gift is a continual suggestion to others to give also. The statue of a noble man or woman is a constant educator and inspirer to good deeds.

The Lick Statuary is of granite, surmounted by bronze figures of heroic proportions. The main column is forty-six feet high, with a bronze figure twelve feet high, weighing 7,000 pounds, on the top, representing Eureka, a woman typical of California, with a grizzly bear by her side. Beneath are four panels, depicting a family of immigrants crossing the Sierras, a vaquero lassoing a steer, traders with the Indians, and California under American rule.

Below these panels are the heads in bronze of James Lick, Father Junipero Serra, Sir Francis Drake, and John C. FrÉmont; and below these, the names of men famous in the history of California,—James W. Marshall, the discoverer of gold at Sutter's mill, and others. There are granite wings to the main pedestal, the bronze figures of which represent early times,—a native Indian over whom bends a Catholic priest, and a Spaniard throwing his lasso; a group of miners in '49, and figures denoting commerce and agriculture. The artist was Mr. Frank Happersberger, a native of California. Members of the California Pioneers made eloquent addresses at the unveiling of the beautiful statue, the band played "The Star-Spangled Banner," and the children of the public schools sang "America."

"The benefactions of James Lick were not of a posthumous character," said the Hon. Willard B. Farwell in his address. "There was no indication of a desire to accumulate for the sake of accumulation alone, and to cling with greedy purpose and tenacity to the last dollar gained, until the heart had ceased its pulsations, and the last breath had been drawn, before yielding it up for the good of others. On the contrary, he provided for the distribution of his wealth while living.... There was no room for cavil then over the manner of his giving. He fulfilled in its broadest measure the injunction of the aphorism, 'He gives well who gives quickly.'"

The gift nearest to Mr. Lick's heart was his great telescope, to be, as he said in his deed of trust, "superior to and more powerful than any telescope yet made, with all the machinery appertaining thereto, and appropriately connected therewith."

This telescope with its building was to be conveyed to the University of California, and to be known as the "Lick Astronomical Department of the University of California."

Various sites were suggested for the great telescope. A gentleman relates the following story: "One of the sites suggested was a mountain north of San Francisco. Mr. Lick was ill, but determined upon visiting this mountain; so he was taken on a cot to the station; and on arriving at the town nearest the mountain, the cot was removed to a wagon, and they started towards the summit. By some accident the rear of the wagon gave way, and the cot containing the old gentleman slid out on the mountain-side. This so angered him that he said he would never place the telescope on a mountain that treated him in that way, and ordered the party to turn back towards San Francisco."

During the summer of 1875 Mr. Lick sent Mr. Fraser, his trusted agent, to report on Mount St. Helena, Monte Diablo, Mount Hamilton, and others. In many respects the latter, in sight of his old mill at San JosÉ, seemed the best situated of all the mountain peaks. "Yet the possibility that a complete astronomical establishment might one day be planted on its summit seemed more like a fairy-tale than like sober fact," says Professor Edward S. Holden, Director of the Lick Observatory. "It was at that time a wilderness. A few cattle-ranches occupied the valleys around it. Its slopes were covered with chaparral or thickets of scrub oak. Not even a trail led over it. The nearest house was eleven miles away." It was and is the home of many rattlesnakes. They live upon squirrels, and small birds and their eggs, and come up to the top of the mountain in quest of water.

Sir Edwin Arnold, who visited Mount Hamilton, tells this incident of the "road-runner," the bird sometimes called "chaparral cock," as it was told to him. "The rattlesnake is the deadly enemy of its species, always hunting about in the thickets for eggs and young birds, since the 'road-runner' builds its nest on the ground. When, therefore, the 'chaparral cocks' find a 'rattler' basking in the sun, they gather, I was assured, leaves of the prickly cactus, and lay them in a circle all around the serpent, which cannot draw its belly over the sharp needles of these leaves. Thus imprisoned, the reptile is set upon by the birds, and pecked or spurred to death."

Mount Hamilton, fifty miles southeast of San Francisco, is near San JosÉ, twenty-six miles eastward, and thus easy of access, save the difficulty of reaching its summit, 4,300 feet above the sea. This was overcome by the willingness of Santa Clara County to construct a road to its top; which road was completed in December, 1876, at a cost of about $78,000. The road rises 4,000 feet in twenty-two miles; and the grade nowhere exceeds six and one-half feet in one hundred, or 343 feet to the mile. Towards the top it winds round and round the flanks of the mountain itself.

The view from the top of the mountain is most inspiring. "The lovely valley of Santa Clara and the Santa Cruz mountains to the west, a bit of the Pacific and the Bay of Monterey to the southwest, the Sierra Nevada (13,000-14,000 feet) with countless ranges between to the southeast, the San Joaquin valley with the Sierras beyond to the east, while to the north lie many lower ranges of hills, and on the horizon Mount Shasta, or Lassens' Butte (14,400 feet), 175 miles away. The Bay of San Francisco lies flat before you, and beyond it is Mount Tamalpais at the entrance to the Golden Gate."

"One of the gorges in the vicinity of Mount Hamilton," writes Taliesin Evans in the May, 1886, Century, "is reputed to have been a favorite retreat of Joaquin Murietta, the famous bandit, whose name was a terror to the early settlers of the State. A spring, situated a mile and a half east of Observatory Peak, at which he is said to have drawn water, now bears the name of 'Joaquin's Spring.'"

On June 7, 1876, Congress gave the land for the site, 1,350 acres; and other land was given and purchased, till the Observatory now has 2,581 acres. It was necessary to remove 72,000 tons of solid rock from the mountain summit, which was lowered as much as thirty-two feet in places, that the buildings might have a level foundation. Clay for making the brick was found about two and one-half miles below the Observatory (by the road), thus saving over $46,000 in the 2,600,000 bricks used. Springs also were fortunately discovered about 340 feet below the present level of the summit.

In 1879, after the site had been decided upon, Professor S. W. Burnham of Chicago was asked by the Lick trustees to test it for astronomical purposes. He took his telescope, and remained there during August, September, and October. Out of sixty nights he found forty-two were of the very highest class for making observations, while eleven were foggy or cloudy. He discovered forty-two new double stars while on the top of the mountain.

Professor Burnham said in his Report, "The remarkable steadiness of the air, and the continued succession of nights of almost perfect definition, are conditions not to be hoped for in any place with which I am acquainted, and judging from the previous reports of the various observatories, are not to be met with elsewhere."

Meantime, even before Congress gave the land in 1876, Mr. D. O. Mills, one of the first trustees, had visited Professor Holden and Professor Newcomb at Washington to determine about the general plans for the Observatory. It was agreed that the latter should go to Europe to investigate the matter of procuring the glass necessary for a large reflector or refractor. It was finally decided that a refracting telescope was the best for the study of double stars and nebulÆ, the moon's surface, etc., giving more distinctness and brilliancy, and being less subject to atmospheric disturbance.

Professor Newcomb experienced much difficulty in Europe in finding a firm ready to undertake to make a glass for a telescope larger and more powerful than any yet made. The firm of M. Feil & Sons, Paris, was finally chosen. Professor Newcomb wrote an interesting report of the process of making the glass.

"The materials," he said, "are mixed and melted in a clay pot holding from five hundred pounds to a ton, and are constantly stirred with an iron rod until the proper combination is obtained. The heat is then slowly diminished until the glass becomes too stiff to be stirred longer. Then the mass, pot and all, is placed in the annealing furnace. Here it must remain undisturbed for a period of a month or more, when it is taken out; the pot and the outside parts of the glass are broken away to find whether a lump suitable for the required disk can be found in the interior.

"If the interior were perfectly solid and homogeneous, there would be no further difficulty; the lump would be softened by heat, pressed into a flat disk, and reannealed, when the work would be complete. But in practice, the interior is always found to be crossed in every direction by veins of unequal density, which will injure the performance of the glass; and the great mechanical difficulty in the production of the disk is to cut these veins out and still leave a mass which can be pressed into a disk without any folding of the original surface."

The glass for a telescope is usually composed of a double convex lens of crown glass, and a plano-concave lens of flint glass. M. Feil & Sons made and shipped the latter, which weighed three hundred and seventy-five pounds, but broke the crown glass in packing it. Then during three years they made twenty unsuccessful trials before obtaining a perfect glass.

The cutting away of the clay pot and outside glass is a tedious process, requiring weeks and even months. No ordinary tools can be used. The pieces are "sawed by a wire working in sand and water.... When it is done," says Professor Newcomb, "the mass must be pressed into the shape of a disk, like a very thin grindstone, and in order to do this the lump must first be heated to the melting-point, so as to become plastic. But when Feil began to heat this large mass it flew to pieces." He took more and more time for heating, and finally succeeded.

The noted firm of Alvan Clark & Sons of Cambridge, Mass., did the polishing and shaping of the lenses, a labor requiring great skill and delicacy of workmanship. The objective glass was ordered in 1880, and reached Mount Hamilton late in 1886, having cost $51,000. It weighs with its cell 638 pounds. The Clarks would not undertake any larger objective than thirty-six inches. This was six inches larger than the great glass which they had made for the Imperial Observatory at Pulkowa, near St. Petersburg in Russia.

The glass, though an important part of the telescope, was only one of many things to be obtained. In 1876 Captain Richard S. Floyd, president of the Lick trustees, himself a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, met Professor Holden in London; and the latter became the planner and adviser, throughout the construction of the buildings and the telescope. Captain Floyd visited many observatories, and carried on a vast correspondence, amounting to several thousand letters, with astronomers and opticians all over the world.

Professor Holden was a graduate of West Point, had been a professor of mathematics in the navy, one of the astronomers at the Washington Observatory, in charge of several eclipse expeditions sent out by the government for observation, a member of various scientific societies in Europe as well as America, and associate member of the Royal Astronomical Society of England, and well-fitted for the position he was afterwards called to fill,—the directorship of the Lick Observatory. For some time he was also president of the University of California.

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: ...

"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.

From 1888 to 1893 the Lick telescope, with its 36-inch object-glass, was the largest refracting telescope in the world. The Yerkes telescope, with its 40-inch object-glass, is now the largest in the world. It is on the shore of Lake Geneva, Wis., seventy-five miles from Chicago, and belongs to the Chicago University. It will be remembered by those who visited the World's Fair at Chicago, and saw it in the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building. Professor George E. Hale is the director of this great observatory. The glass was furnished by Mantois of Paris, from which the lenses were made by Alvan G. Clark, the sole survivor of the famous firm of Alvan Clark & Sons. The crown-glass double convex lens weighs 200 pounds; the plano-concave lens of flint glass, nearest the eye end of the telescope, weighs over 300 pounds.

The telescope and dome were made by Warner & Swasey, who made also the 26-inch telescope at Washington, the 18-inch at the University of Pennsylvania, the 10½-inch at the University of Minnesota, the 12-inch at Columbus, Ohio, and others. Of this firm Professor C. A. Young, in the North American Review for February, 1896, says, "It is not too much to say that in design and workmanship their instruments do not suffer in comparison with the best foreign make, while in 'handiness' they are distinctly superior. There is no longer any necessity for us to go abroad for astronomical instruments, which are fully up to the highest standards."

The steel tube of the Yerkes telescope is 64 feet long, and the 90-foot rotating dome, also of steel, weighs nearly 150 tons. The observatory, of gray Roman brick with gray terra-cotta and stone trimmings, is in the form of a Roman cross, with three domes, the largest dome at the western end covering the great telescope. Of the two smaller domes, one will contain a 12-inch telescope, and the other a 16-inch. Professor Young says of the Yerkes telescope, "It gathers three times as much light as the 23-inch instrument at Princeton; two and three-eighths as much as the 26-inch telescopes of Washington and Charlottesville; one and four-fifths as much as the 30-inch at Pulkowa; and 23 per cent more than the gigantic, and hitherto unrivalled, 36-inch telescope of the Lick Observatory. Possibly in this one quality of 'light,' the six-foot reflector of Lord Rosse, and the later five-foot reflector of Mr. Common, might compete with or even surpass it; but as an instrument for seeing things, it is doubtful whether either of them could hold its own with even the smallest of the instruments named above, because of the reflector's inherent inferiority in distinctness of definition."

Professor Young thinks the Yerkes telescope can hardly hope for the exceptional excellence of the "seeing" at Mount Hamilton, Nice, or Ariquipa, at least at night. The magnifying power of the Yerkes telescope is so great, being from 200 to 4,000, that the moon can be brought optically within sixty miles of the observer's eye. "Any lunar object five or six hundred feet square would be distinctly visible,—a building, for instance, as large as the Capitol at Washington."

Since the death of Mr. Lick others have added to his generous gifts for the purchase of special instruments, for sending expeditions to foreign countries to observe total solar eclipses, and the like. Mrs. Phoebe Hearst has given the fund which will yield $2,000 or more each year for Hearst Fellowships in astronomy or other special work. Colonel C. F. Crocker has given a photographic telescope and dome, and provided a sum sufficient to pay the expenses of an eclipse expedition to be sent from Mount Hamilton to Japan, in August, 1896, under charge of Professor SchÆberle.

Mr. Edward Crossley, a wealthy member of Parliament for Halifax, England, has given a reflector and forty-foot dome, which reached Mount Hamilton from Liverpool in the latter part of 1895.

Mr. Lick's gift of the telescope has stimulated a love for astronomical study and research, not only in California, but throughout the world. The Astronomical Society of the Pacific was founded Feb. 7, 1889; and any man or woman with genuine interest in the science was invited to join. It has a membership of over five hundred, and its publications are valuable. The society holds its summer meetings on Mount Hamilton. Very wisely, for the sake of diffusing knowledge, visitors are made welcome to Mount Hamilton every Saturday evening between the hours of seven and ten o'clock, to look through the big telescope and through the smaller ones when not in use. In five years, from June 1, 1889, to June 1, 1894, there were 33,715 visitors. Each person is shown the most interesting celestial objects, and the whole force of the Observatory is on duty, and spares no pains to make the visits both interesting and profitable.

James Lick planned wisely when he thought of his great telescope, even if he had no other wish than to be remembered and honored. Undoubtedly he did have other motives; for Professor Holden says, "A very extensive course of reading had given him the generous idea that the future well-being of the race was the object for a good man to strive to forward. Towards the end of his life, at least, the utter futility of his money to give any inner satisfaction oppressed him more and more."

The results of scientific work of the Lick Observatory have been most interesting and remarkable. Professor Edward E. Barnard discovered, Sept. 9, 1892, the fifth satellite of Jupiter, one hundred miles in diameter. He discovered nineteen comets in ten years, and has been called the "comet-seeker." He has also, says Professor Holden, made a very large number of observations "upon the physical appearance of the planets Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn; upon the zodiacal light, etc.; upon meteors, lunar eclipses, double stars, occultations of stars, etc.; and he has discovered a considerable number of new nebulÆ also." Professor Barnard resigned Oct. 1, 1895, to accept the position of professor of astronomy in the University of Chicago, and is succeeded by Professor Wm. J. Hussey of the Leland Stanford Junior University.

Sir Edwin Arnold, during his visit to the Observatory, at the suggestion of Professor Campbell, looked through the great telescope upon the nebula in Orion. "I saw," he writes, "in the well-known region of 'Beta Orionis,' the vast separate system of that universe clearly outlined,—a fleecy, irregular, mysterious, windy shape, its edges whirled and curled like those of a storm-cloud, with stars and star clusters standing forth against the milky white background of the nebula like diamonds lying upon silver cloth. The central star, which to the naked eye or to a telescope of lower power looks single and of no great brilliancy, resolved itself, under the potent command of the Lick glass, into a splendid trapezium of four glittering worlds, arranged very much like those of the Southern Cross.

"At the lower right-hand border of the beautiful cosmic mist, there opens a black abyss of darkness, which has the appearance of an inky cloud about to swallow up the silvery filigree of the nebula; but this the great glass fills up with unsuspecting worlds when the photographic apparatus is fitted to it. I understood Professor Holden's views to be that we were beholding, in that almost immeasurably remote silvery haze, an entirely separated system of worlds and clusters, apart from all others, as our own system is, but inconceivably grander, larger, and more populous with suns and planets and their starry allies."

Professor John M. SchÆberle, formerly of Michigan University, has discovered two or more comets, written much on solar eclipses, the "canals" of Mars, and the sun's corona. He, with Professor S. W. Burnham, went to South America to observe the solar eclipse of Dec. 21-22, 1889; and the former took observations on the solar eclipse April 16, 1893, at Mina Bronces, Chili.

Professor Burnham catalogued over one hundred and ninety-eight new double stars, which he discovered while at Mount Hamilton. He, with Professor Holden and others, have taken remarkable photographs of the moon; and the negatives have been sent to Professor Weinek of Prague, who makes enlarged drawings and photographs of them. Astronomers in Copenhagen, Vienna, Great Britain, and other parts of Europe, are working with the Lick astronomers. Star maps, in both northern and southern hemispheres, have been made at the Lick Observatory, and photographs of the milky way, the sun and its spots, comets, nebulÆ, Mars, Jupiter, etc. Professor Holden has written much in the magazines, the Century, McClure's, The Forum, and elsewhere, concerning these photographs, "What we really know about Mars," and kindred topics.

Professor Perrine discovered a new comet in February, 1896, which for some time travelled towards the earth at the rate of 1,600,000 miles per day. Professor David P. Todd of Amherst College was enabled to make at the Lick Observatory the finest photographs ever made of the transit of Venus, Dec. 6, 1882. As there will not be another transit of Venus till Jan. 8, 2004, so that no living astronomer will ever behold another, this transit was of special importance. The transit of Mercury was also observed in 1881 by Professor Holden and others.

The equipment at the Lick Observatory is admirable, and the sight excellent; but the income from the $90,000 endowment is too small to allow the desired work. There are but seven observers at Mount Hamilton, while at Greenwich, at Paris, and other observatories, there are from forty to fifty men. The total income for salaries and all other expenses is $22,000 at the Lick Observatory; at Paris, Greenwich, Harvard College, the United States Naval Observatory at Washington, etc., from $60,000 to $100,000 is spent yearly, and is all useful. Fellowships producing $600 a year are greatly needed, to be named after the givers, and the money to provide a larger force of astronomers. Mr. Lick's great gift has been nobly begun, but funds are necessary to carry on the work.