Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1886-09-17
THE SALSBURG OBSERVATORY.

A Site Ten Thousand Miles High Chosen by the
Austrian Government.
Observatories will probably never again
| be built, as they have been too often in
the past, on low, swampy ground or in
the middle of great cities. 1t was only
last year that Admiral Mouchez, in his re
port on the Paris observatory declared
that the great telescope thee to be erect
ed is practically useless ,~1g TO the fact
that the atmosphere of the French capi-
tai lacks transparency. The admiral pro-
posed to the Academy of Science in
France that branch observatory should
be built near Paris, but well out of the re-
gion of fog and city smoke, plan which
the academy did not see its way at once
to adopt; and the result was that the
noble astronomical instrument was con
verted temporarily into a white elephant.
In this dilemma the Algerian authorities
kindly proposed that Paris should send
the telescope over to Africa, when they
promised to mount 1t at the observatory
of Algiers, which has been very sensibly
built at the summit of the Bondjareah
mountains. Paris, however, did not see
fit to accept the offer; and possibly it
may have been due to the report of Ad-
miral MoucheZ and his condemnation of
low sites for observatories that the gigan-
tic tower, eleven hundred feet high was
started as an attraction for the next
French exhibition. Supposing that it
were possible to erect the great Paris
telescope anywhere within a reasonable
distance of the top of the modern tower
of Babel, it might be safely predicted
that it would cease to be affected by the
fOggy and smoky atmosphere down below.
The Paris tower, however, being far off.
and the telescope and its mountings heavy,
it is highly improbable that it will ever
get one thousand feet from the ground,
at all events in the neighborhoOd of the
Gallo capital.
The Austrian government wiser in its
generation than the French has taken to
heart the protests of scientific men
against low-lying sites for astronomical
and meteorological buildsngs, and has
just erected the very highest observatory
in the whole world. This is one on the
summit of the Sinnibelleck mountain,
which scars upward of ten thousand feet
high. 1t is in the province of Silzburg,
in the Austrian Alps, and is not distant
from Bad Gastein, the famous meeting
place of the emperors, nor from the
Gross GlOchner, where the recent noun
ldILSSIliIS I6SIuSub occurred. Inc OD-
servatory is intended primarily for me-
teorological purposes, And will be in
connection with the chief central office in
Vienna. The telegraph wires will be
brought up the mountain side, across a
glancier, and will join the general tele-
graphic circuit of the country at Texen-
bach. Everything has been done to rem
der life at this enormous attitude as safe
and comfortable as possible. The noun
tain has been chosen owing to its being a
famous cente~ IF eIe,4 Tical disturbance,
and the workmen who have been engaged
in building the observatory are said to
have had numerous opportunities in
watching the way IN which lightning be
haves as seen from above the clouds.
Fitted with copper roof, which is useful
for warding off lightning, with walls of
judicious thickness and no doubt equipp-
ed with forest of lightning conductors,
the Salzburg observatory ought to do very
well. On fine days the occupants can
emerge from their refuge and observe the
splendid landscape spread at their feet