Chapter 24 - Page 2

Republican Yankees delight to call it.

Eastwards rise the Appalachians, the very highest point of
which, in New Hampshire, does not exceed the very moderate
altitude of 5,600 feet.

On the west, however, rise the Rocky Mountains, that immense
range which, commencing at the Straights of Magellan, follows
the western coast of Southern America under the name of the
Andes or the Cordilleras, until it crosses the Isthmus of
Panama, and runs up the whole of North America to the very
borders of the Polar Sea. The highest elevation of this range
still does not exceed 10,700 feet. With this elevation,
nevertheless, the Gun Club were compelled to be content,
inasmuch as they had determined that both telescope and
Columbiad should be erected within the limits of the Union.
All the necessary apparatus was consequently sent on to the
summit of Long's Peak, in the territory of Missouri.

Neither pen nor language can describe the difficulties of all
kinds which the American engineers had to surmount, of the
prodigies of daring and skill which they accomplished. They had
to raise enormous stones, massive pieces of wrought iron, heavy
corner-clamps and huge portions of cylinder, with an
object-glass weighing nearly 30,000 pounds, above the line of
perpetual snow for more than 10,000 feet in height, after
crossing desert prairies, impenetrable forests, fearful rapids,
far from all centers of population, and in the midst of savage
regions, in which every detail of life becomes an almost
insoluble problem. And yet, notwithstanding these innumerable
obstacles, American genius triumphed. In less than a year after
the commencement of the works, toward the close of September,
the gigantic reflector rose into the air to a height of 280 feet.
It was raised by means of an enormous iron crane; an ingenious
mechanism allowed it to be easily worked toward all the points
of the heavens, and to follow the stars from the one horizon to
the other during their journey through the heavens.

It had cost $400,000. The first time it was directed toward the
moon the observers evinced both curiosity and anxiety. What were
they about to discover in the field of this telescope which
magnified objects 48,000 times? Would they perceive peoples,
herds of lunar animals, towns, lakes, seas? No! there was
nothing which science had not already discovered! and on all the
points of its disc the volcanic nature of the moon became
determinable with the utmost precision.

But the telescope of the Rocky Mountains, before doing its duty
to the Gun Club, rendered immense services to astronomy. Thanks to
its penetrative power, the depths of the heavens were sounded to
the utmost extent; the apparent diameter of a great