INSTRUMENTS DAMAGED

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 453, 22 June 1937, Page 7

INSTRUMENTS DAMAGED

COLLEGE OBSERVATORY Students Held To Blame When a recent public conversazione was held at Canterbury College, a number of irresponsible-s, said to be students, caused considerable damage to delicate instruments in the college observatory, sitates the StarSun, Christchurch. They also left the expensive apparatus open to ra:-n. The story of this mischief and Its consequences is told by one of the demonstrators, who writes to the student journal Canlta as follows: “There occurred one very unfortunate incident, regrettable in so much -as it shows what I‘i le sense some students have. Three or four etudenits either during or alter Hie conversazione found their way 'Through the trap.-door in th. floor into the observatory. “According to Che caretaker they were a little intoxicated, which, howevor, I do not think excuses their subsequent tehavious. The fine on Hl9 telescqpe were removed, one was smashed, and a bracket which/supported one of these adjustments was wrenched off the barrel of itlie telescope “Furthermore, one of three sliding sections of the roof had been allowed to come right off the roof and lie along the wall of the observatory, with ithe result that when it came on to rain in the earlv hours of Friday morning the. observatory and instruments were exposed to the wind and rain.”