Los Angeles Herald, Volume 26, Number 116, 15 February 1887 — THE OBSERVATORY DOME. [ARTICLE]

THE OBSERVATORY DOME.

Completion of the monster Steel Structure* Upon the wharf of (he Union Iron Works aland* a huge and novel structure. Ia shape it ia a perfect half-sphere, with a diameter of seventy-five feet. Its 1 massive steel-carved ribs atd the gen- : erally monstrous appearance of the affair . excite tbe curiosity of all who pass by the work". The structure is the dome of the Lick Observatory, just completed, which will be shipped to Mount Uamil. . ton in the course cf three weeks. The steel sheeting for covering, although ' cut in proper lengths, will not be j.ut on until the dome is erected at the observatory. As stated, ihe diameter is seventy-five feet, or thirly-seven and a half ir m the zenith of tbe base. The entire dome rests upon wheels and may be made to revolve about on a plane. The dome without the floor, which is not connected with, it weighs ninety tons, yet a man with one hand may turn it about with ease. The power supplied is a water engine. The floor is a separate portion of the mechanism. In observatories at present the observer sits in a chair, which by means of a screw he may raise of lower, according as the telescope is pointed toward the zenith or horizon. As the distance tbat the chair must be elevated in the comparatively small telescope now in use is only six or eight feet, the plan was convenient, but in tbe monster Lick telescope the observer in taking observations from horizon to zenith must rise seventeen feet; consequently the plan was invented of raising and lowering the entire floor of the dome. The floor weichs twentyfour tons, but so nicely is it poised with balancing weights that to lift or drop it requires little more exertion than to boitt au elevator. Extending from the circumfranoe to the zenith and ten feet beyond i 1 a slot in the covering ten feet wide, along which the telescope will move. This slot is cloeed by steel plates, which open or shut like folding doors. The dams will be taken down and shipped in sections. —[8. F. Chron-