The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-10-10
BEWARE OF FRAUD.
TIE OHIO CHEMICAL CO.
81, So a 65 Opera Block, LIMA, OHIO.

trick is to correct the color of a faulty
glass Some glasses will show the wrong
color on certain stars. This fault is cor
rected by a mysterious process which
does not consist in heating the glass or
affecting its chemical elements.
'What do you need to make lens for
a fine telescopel" was asked of this New
York lensmaker the other day as he was
working at what he calls his trade"
"Sure, all need was the reply ''is
chunk of glass, plug of tobacco and
pailful of Coney Island sand
The chunk of glass" out of which the
lens is made is not, however, a mere piece
of the ordinary commercial glass out Of
which lamp-chimneyS and windowpanes
are made. Lens-glaSs is specially made
in France, and a piece about as big as
an appls pie costs $40 to $50 in the rough.
1t is called ''tlint-glass,' and is rough on
both sides and roughly broken OF Of the
sheet in round pieces of the size desired.
1t is supposed to be free from bubbles,
but these, as small as a pinhead are
sometimes not discovered until the lens
is nearly finished. 1t takes many weeks
of weary polishing before the lens begins
to assume its final shape. This work is
all done by hand, and the workman
uses ordinary seashore sand, which
is carefully freed from shells
and foreign particles. The New York
lensmaker chews tobacco while perform
ing his work and and splits the tobacco
juice into the sand with which he is grind
ing the fine piece of glass, lie has the
DRY that the tobacco juice in some mystic
rious way helps in the work A simple
wooden machine, worked by the foot and
giving the glass a horizontal rotary mo-
ton, is used to shape the piece of glass in
the early stages, but after that the feel"
of the hand alone is relied upon to give
the lens perfect symmetry and shape. An
elevation that neither the eye nor any in
strument will detect is often sufficient to
make the finest glass worthless. The
workman is governed alone by his fine
sense of touch In testing the glass
after he is finished he uses an old
wooden tube strapped to q tripod which
he declares to be just as good as the finest
brass telescope framework. His shop is
on Union square. With an ordinary good
telescope of his own make he declares
that he can see fly across Union square
He generally finds the fly summing himself
on the gold coat-of-arms on the Everett
House, and he can see the eyes and color
of the fly If the glass is good. AT Other
times he finds fly on the head of George
Washington, or turns a newspaper upside
down and reads the print across the
square. These are tests by day, and at
night he tests the Instruments from the
same pl ace upon the stars.
The New York lensmaker, who keeps
the quality of every big telescope in the
United States, and can tell its faults and
failings, came over to this country as a
boy from Ireland, and learned his trade"
by going into the shop of a telescope
maker, where he began by sweeping the
floor He expresses the utmost contempt
for the species of knowledge which pre-
tends that telescopes and their glasses
can be made upon scientific principles.
Working by rule of thumb alone he has
made some of the finest instruments-the
finest, he says, in the world-and he
claims no one can equal him in such
work. Very large telescopes, like the
Lick, in California, and the Yerkes, now
being made for the Chicago University,
are, he says, of very little use The rea-
son, he gives for this is that the object
lens, from its great weight, says in the
center when the instrument is thrown up
at an angle, and that all objects are thus
thrown cut of proportion. These glasses,
however, he says, are good when vertical
that is, when the telescope is level and
pointed at the horizon. A man of the
reputation and ability of the New York
lensmaker can earn a very large income.
| He, however, only works when he feels
like it, and the work waits for him.