 | An image should appear at this position in the text. To use the entire page scan as a placeholder, edit this page and replace "{{missing image}}" with "{{raw image|Nature - Volume 1.pdf/423}}". Otherwise, if you are able to provide the image then please do so. For guidance, see Wikisource:Image guidelines and Help:Adding images. |  |
THE OBSERVATORY FOR THE NEWALL TELESCOPE
THE NEWALL TELESCOPE
THE 25-inch Equatorial Telescope, commenced several years ago by T. Cooke and Sons, of York, for R. S. Newall, Esq., of Gateshead, is now so far completed that it has been removed from the works at York into its observatory in Mr. Newall's grounds, at Fern Deal.
The completion of a telescope with an object glass of 25 inches aperture, marks an epoch in astronomy, and its completion in England again places us in the front rank in the matter of the optical art, as we were in Dolland's time.
The history of the progress of the manufacture of telescopes since the time referred to, shows very clearly the long-lasting effects of bad legislation; for it is not too much to say that the duty on glass entirely stifled, if indeed it did not kill, the optical art in England. Hence we depended for many years upon France and Germany for our telescopes to such an extent indeed that the largest object-glasses at Greenwich, Oxford, and Cambridge are all of foreign make. The labours of the Germans culminated in the two magnificent instruments of 151 inches aperture in the observatories of Pulkowa and Cambridge, U.S. And then for a time America, thanks to the genius of Alvan Clarke, took the lead with the 18 inch glass now beginning to do good work in the observatory of Chicago. This instrument is at last eclipsed by the magnificent one now being erected at Gateshead.
In what we have said we have purposely omitted to touch upon reflecting telescopes, in the construction of which, since the time of Newton, England has always been pre-eminent, because we shall take occasion to refer to the reflector of four feet aperture, completed last year by Mr. Grubb, of Dublin, and now erected at Melbourne when it is fairly at work.
The general design and appearance of this monster among telescopes, which will be gathered from the accompanying woodcut, is the same as that of the well-known Cooke equatorials; but the extraordinary size of all the parts has necessitated the special arrangement of most of them.
The length of the tube, including dew-cap and eye-end,
