Page:Gods Glory in the Heavens.djvu/304

270 comfortable devices, but the perfection of comfort is the chair devised by Mr Bond, for observing with the great equatorial. The eye must follow the end of the telescope, which moves in a circle, and the chair must therefore move in a circle too, and so that you may be sometimes aloft in the dome, or sometimes down near the floor; and, besides all this, it must be moved to the right or left, at pleasure. Now, all these complicated movements can be executed without leaving your chair. By turning handles attached to the chair, you move up or down, along the concave of a circle, and to the right or left, at pleasure. All that you have to do is to observe at ease, and give an occasional pressure or tap with your finger. But may we not hope that the time is coming when it will not even be necessary for the astronomer to use his eyes? May he not construct an eye more reliable than his own, so that, in dealing with the stars, he will have only to expend the force of human intellect without any bodily exertion? Strange as it may appear, steps have been already taken to supersede the human eye. At Kew, the spots on the sun are daily recorded by an artificial eye, the object-glass forming the pupil, and a photographic plate the retina. This retina has the advantage over the human one of retaining the impression, so that precise measurements may be made at leisure.

At Dudley Observatory, in the outskirts of Albany, we found the director, Mr Mitchell, formerly of Cincinnati, in anything but a calm, scientific mood.