Show to fathom stars secrets housed in a modest unassuming brick structure standing just around the corner from lal e avenue profs barnard and ditchey are just now be ginning an important work in con with the installation of the great yerkes telescope on mount wil son says the los angeles times six months ago the proposition was made to the board of trade that it that body would agree to furnish a suitable site the observatory people would put up a workshop and manu facture all their delicate instruments in pasadena the offer was accepted and a committee raised the funds aad presented the company the present site on santa barbara street the workshop buildings have just been completed and are now in occupancy giving employment to several score of men by all odds the most interesting ob eject in the workshop is the wonderful alve foot t lens which has been received rough ground from paris and will be finished and polished here in order to complete this con vex lens a block of glass eight inches in thice ness Is being ground to a min icum depth of three quarters of an inch and so great is the precision re quiren ahat the finished lens must con form to within one 2 of an inch of its proper measurement this measurement must be taken by means of light and complicated figures it being obviously impossible to take the measurements in the regular way the great mirror will then be sil vered and mounted the mounting la perhaps the most tedious thing of all tor it will require twelve plates to back up the crystal mass each plate supporting exactly one twelfth of the total weight of one ton this great five foot lens will be used in photo graphing dim nebulae and will have a focal depth of twenty five feet the temperature of distant stars will also be measured by them |