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.
[Illustration: 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."