Page:A discovery that the moon has a vast population of human beings.djvu/24

 require; and although, when at its nearest station it cannot command an observation with the great lens within about fifteen degrees of the meridian, it is supplied with an excellent telescope of vast power, constructed by the elder Herschel, by which every high degree can be surveyed. The field of view, therefore, whether exhibited on the floor or on the wall of the apartment, has a diameter of nearly fifty feet, and, being circular, it has therefore an area of nearly 1875 feet. The place of all the horizontal movements having been accurately levelled by Lieut. Drummond, with the improved level of his invention which bears his name, and the wheels both of the observatory and of the leng-works being facilitated by friction-rollers in patent axle-boxes filled with oil, the strength of one man applied to the extremity of the levers is sufficient to propel the whole structure upon either of the railroad circles; and that of two men applied to the windlass is fully adequate to bring the obBervatory to the basis of the pillars. Both of these movements, however, are now effected by a locomotive apparatus commanded within the apartment by a single person, and showing, by means of an ingenious index, every inch of progression or retrogression.

We have not thus particularly described the telescope of the younger Herschel because we consider it the most magnificent specimen of philosophical mechanism of the present or any previous age, but because we deemed an explicit description of its principles and powers an almost indispensable introduction to a statement of the sublime expansion of human knowledge which it has achieved. It was not fully completed until the latter part of December, when the series of large reflectors for the microscope arrived from England; and it was brought into operation during the first week of the ensuing month and year. But the secresy which had been maintained with regard to its novelty, its manufacture, and its destination, was not less rigidly preserved for several months respecting the grandeur of its bilecese. Whether the British Government were sceptical concerning the promised splendor of its discoveries, or wished them to be scrupulously veiled until they had accumulated a a full-orbed glory for the nation and reign in which they origi-