exception of the eighth of an inch in the diameter of the object-glass, it is precisely similar to the Pulkova telescope, the figure of which is familiar to every student of astronomy. The sight of the real instrument was like renewing acquaintance with an old friend. It was, however, with a species of reverence that one looked up to this monument of human genius, balanced on its massive pillar, and enshrined in its capacious dome. It was not the Bavarian artist you were inclined to do reverence to. No; he merely put the last stone on the pyramid which human genius had been rearing for ages. This telescope was the highest product of the human intellect; it was the combination of all sciences, for all had been laid under contribution to make a perfect instrument. In one point of view, man may well be proud of such an achievement; and, in another, how humbling is it! For what, after all, is its grand object? Is it not to teach us how little we do know? Man perched on the summit of the pyramid which his genius has reared, no doubt gets a somewhat wider range of view, but he has discovered only a little more of the fringe of the garment of the Omnipotent. No doubt the telescope unfolds new worlds and systems, but, after all, they are only the outer court of the temple of the Most High. The unknown only becomes more overwhelming, the more that we extend the limits of the known.
America is famed for her rocking-chairs, and all
