THE LARGEST TELESCOPE IN THE WORLD.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1495, 20 May 1873, Page 3

THE LARGEST TELESCOPE IN THE WORLD.

We shall soon know all about the moon —at least our Amercan friends will, and when they know we suppose everybody will. The Scientific American publishes an engraving of a wonderful telescope, which, through the annihilation of 360,000 miles of space by its refracting power, brings the moon within eighty niiles of the human eye. " Its magnifying power is 3000 times, and as the eye naturally receives a beam of light one-fifth of an inch in diameter, this instrumentgathering from the surface of a 25-inch object-glass— will have an illuminating power 15, 625 times greater. " Such is the the scientific explanation of this new wonder. This object-glass is the largest in the world. It was recently made in England, and, with its ■hunting and working apparatus, is proa wonder of science and art. Mit telescopes are like cannon and armorplates ; no sooner is perfection supposed to be achieved than a new start is effected, and greater marvels result. Accordingly the eighty miles between earth and moon are soon to be diminished, and this time by a Massachusetts house, who are completing at a cost of 50,000d01., a 27in. lens for the Ud ;ed States Government. This telescope will be fixed on the Sierre Nevada Mountains, in an atmosphere of the utmost purity, from 7000 ft to 10,000 ft above sea level. But American enterprise will not rest even with this achievement, ■. and now we learn a movement is on foot for erecting a million-dollar telescope under Government auspices, which would " virtually reduce -the distance from the earth to the moon to about four or five miles." When this is achieved the great dispute about the "Man in the Moon" may be regarded as settled, for we shall be near enough to see him, and, with gome further scientific apparatus, perhaps pveii^speak to him !