V - GREAT TELESCOPES AND THEIR WORK

Summary

One hardly knows where, in the history of science, to look for an important movement that had its effective start in so pure and simple an accident as that which led to the building of the great Washington telescope, and went on to the discovery of the satellites of Mars. Very different might have been a chapter of astronomical history, but for the accident of Mr. Cyrus Field, of Atlantic cable fame, having a small dinner party at the Arlington Hotel, Washington, in the winter of 1870. Among the guests were Senators Hamlin and Casserly, Mr. J. E. Hilgard of the Coast Survey, and a young son of Mr. Field, who had spent the day in seeing the sights of Washington. Being called upon for a recital of his experiences, the youth described his visit to the observatory, and expressed his surprise at finding no large telescope. The only instrument they could show him was much smaller and more antiquated than that of Mr. Rutherfurd in New York.

The guests listened to this statement with incredulity, and applied to Mr. Hilgard to know whether the visitor was not mistaken, through a failure to find the great telescope of the observatory. Mr. Hilgard replied that the statement was quite correct, the observatory having been equipped at a time when the construction of great refracting telescopes had not been commenced, and even their possibility was doubted.