A GREAT TELESCOPE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 13299, 7 February 1914, Page 9

A GREAT TELESCOPE.

WILL WEIGH 50 TONS AND BE THE MOST POWERFUL ON EARTH. NEW YORK, December 29. The Canadian Government has awarded a contract to the Warner andSwasey Company of Cleveland. Ohio, for the construction of what is to be the largest telescope m the Avorld. Eighteen months will be required to manufacture it and place it m position. A rough idea of its size may be gained from noting that a full-sized automobile could be readily driven through the tube. The Warner and Swasey Company built the Leik telescope, finished m 1887, the object glass of which is thirtysix inches m diameter, and the Yerkes telescope finished m 1893, has a fortyinch glass. These, when constructed, were the largest m the world. Ambrose* Swasey, a .distinguished scientist, and a member of the contracting firm, when asked for the details of the colossal neAv instrument, said : "Great impetus Avill be given to astronomy by the action of the Canadian Government m acquiring this splendid seventy-two inch instrument. "This great engine of science, weighing fully fifty tons, resting upon massive piers of concrete, will havo a tube thirty feet long and seven feet m diameter Avhich will weigh ton toils." _ At the lower end of the tube Avill be created the principal spectrum composed of a disc of glass seventy-three inches m diameter, ten inches m thickness and weighing approximately two tons.