The Romance of Modern Invention: Containing Interesting Descriptions in Non-technical Language of Wireless Telegraphy, Liquid Air, Modern Artillery, Submarines, Dirigible Torpedoes, Solar Motors, Airships, &c. &c.Williams, Archibald
Science
The Romance of Modern Invention: Containing Interesting Descriptions in Non-technical Language of Wireless Telegraphy, Liquid Air, Modern Artillery, Submarines, Dirigible Torpedoes, Solar Motors, Airships, &c. &c.
Williams, Archibald
Inventions
For the removal of the mirror from Jeumont to Paris a special train
was engaged, and precautions were taken rivalling those by which
travelling Royalty is guarded. The train ran at night without
stopping, and at a constant pace, so that the vibration of the glass
atoms might not vary. On arriving at Paris, the mirror was transferred
to a ponderous waggon, and escorted by a body of men to the Exposition
buildings. The huge object-lens received equally careful treatment.
The telescope was housed at the Exhibition in a long gallery pointing
due north and south, the siderostat at the north end. At the other,
the eyepiece, end, a large amphitheatre accommodated the public
assembled to watch the projection of stellar or lunar images on to a
screen thirty feet high, while a lecturer explained what was visible
from time to time. The images of the sun and moon as they appeared at
the primary focus in the eyepiece measured from twenty-one to
twenty-two inches in diameter, and the screen projections were
magnified from these about thirty times superficially.
The eyepiece section consisted of a short tube, of the same breadth as
the main tube, resting on four wheels that travelled along rails.
Special gearing moved this truck-like construction backwards and
forwards to bring a sharp focus into the eyepiece or on to a
photographic plate. Focusing was thus easy enough when once the
desired object came in view; but the observer being unable to control
the siderostat, 250 feet distant, had to telephone directions to an
assistant stationed near the mirror whenever he wished to examine an
object not in the field of vision.
By the courtesy of the proprietors of the _Strand_ _Magazine_ we are
allowed to quote M. Deloncle’s own words describing his emotions on
his first view through the giant telescope:--
“As is invariably the case, whenever an innovation that sets at nought
old-established theories is brought forward, the prophecies of failure
were many and loud, and I had more than a suspicion that my success
would cause less satisfaction to others than to myself. Better than
any one else I myself was cognisant of the unpropitious conditions in
which my instrument had to work. The proximity of the river, the dust
raised by hundreds of thousands of trampling feet, the trepidation of
the soil, the working of the machinery, the changes of temperature,
the glare from the thousands of electric lamps in close
proximity--each of these circumstances, and many others of a more
technical nature, which it would be tedious to enumerate, but which
were no less important, would have been more than sufficient to make
any astronomer despair of success even in observatories where all the
surroundings are chosen with the utmost care.
“In regions pure of calm and serene air large new instruments take
months, more often years, to regulate properly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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