The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1883-03-17
The Great Telescope at Princeton

The Great Telescope at Princeton.
The great blue dome of the Halsted OBJ
servatory rising boldly above the lofty walls
of gray stone, which lift it out of the dust
and smoke of the little town, is the most
striking edifce in Princeton. 1t gives an air
of erudition to the place. The traveller see
ing it confronting him as he alights at the
railroad station feels at once that he is in a
university town, where the gravity of learn
ing lends unwonted weight and dignity to
all things, even to the chanticleer, who,
somewhat haughtily, though gravely and
decorously, eyes him from neighboring
fence without indulging in any unscholarly
and dunmannerly growing, One can imagine
the Spaniards looking with something like
awe upon the returned ships of Columbus.
A great observatory seems to produce a
similar effect The magical charm of dis
covery hovers around it-discovery not
among continents and islands on the other
side of the earth, but among suns and
worlds soaring in the heavens, many Of
which are far grander and more glorious
than our own.
The new telescope which has recently
been mounted in the observatory at Prince
ton is, with the exception of the one in
Washington. the largest in this country.
Its object glass lacks but one inch of being
two feet in diameter, and the cigar-shaped
tube of steel is about thirty feet long. 1t
ranks with the half dozen telescope giants
which within few years have been placed
in the hands of the astronomers of the
world. but of whose astonishing achieve
ments the public has heard but little Sir
William Herschel would have thrown away
his big refectors in disgust if he could have
caught glimpse of the heavens through
one of these telescopes. People who are
not familiar with the progress of astronomy
have no notion of the work that is being
done in the or at observatory overlooking
the battle ground of PrincetOn-wOrk that
is hanging the whole outlook for the human
mind putting the earth, as it were, into
communication with its neighbOrs in the
heavens, as steam engines and the telegraph
have linked together the four quarters of
the globe. People generally have no con-
ception of what modern astronomers have
achieved. Take for instance, their studies
of the planet Mars If it were told Of
some ancient people, it would be set down
as an idle fable, yet it is fact that our
astronomers to-day have a more compre-
hensive knowledge of the geography Of
Mars than anybody in the time of Colun-
bus had of the geography of the earth.
They have made careful maps of the whole
planet, filled with astonishing details, and
if an astronomer were suddenl transported
to Mars and set down at some given point
upon its surface, he would not, by any
means, feel that he was lost. Given his
latitude and longitude, he would know that
IN a certain direction and at a distance OF
a certain number of miles lay the body of
water named in his maps the Lake of the
Sun, or Lockyer Sea, and that in another
direction was the continent of Copernicus.
He would know whether he was standing
upon an island or the mainland, what the
general shape of the land was, and which
was the shortest route to the sea coast. If
the inhabitants of Mars were not inclined
to maritime enterprise and geographical
explanation, he would be able to tell them
more than they had ever known of the form
and position of lands and seas of their
globe, and might perhaps earn comforta-
BILE living in a strange world by opening a
school for instruction in martial geography.
These same astronomers have not only
weighed the sun and discovered of what
material it is composed, but they have also
analysed the stars and shown that in many
of them the same elements exist with which
we are familiar on earth. They have
proved that, so far from our sun being the
only one, the universe is sprinkled with
many millions of suns. They have found
worlds and suns go through a process of
development, and by looking at the spect-
rum of star they can tell whether it is
probably older or younger than the sun.
They have discovered suns, some larger
than ours, which grouped together in pairs
and by threes and fours, are swinging
around common centre They have
found spots in the heavens that are fairly
bedded and abIaze with suns. With their
eyes one may look upon chaos itself, for
they tell us that the so-called gaseous neb-
ulae are really portions of the universe
which have not yet been organized into
solar systems.
In view of these facts, an account of the
wonderful scenes which are opened up in
the celestial spaces by the great Princeton
telescope, and which are seldom enjoyed by
anybody except an astronomer, must pos
sess interest for all readers. The Prince
ton telescope is particularly interesting,
because it is in charge of one of the fore
most of living astronomers, Prof. c. A.
Young, who has made some of the most
important additions to astronomical science
which it has received in modern times.
An amateur astronomer who recently spent
an evening in the Princeton observatory,
tells the story of what he saw, which thus
cOncludesi