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.")]