. Then he proceeded to Cambridge and visited the
workshop of the Clarks. He expressed some surprise at its modest
dimensions and fittings generally, but was so well pleased with what
he saw that he decided to award them the contract for making the
object glass. He was the guest of the Pickerings at the Cambridge
Observatory, and invited me thither from where I was summering on
the coast of Massachusetts to assist in negotiating the contract.

He requested that, for simplicity in conference, the preliminary terms
should be made with but a single member of the firm to talk with.
George B. Clark, the eldest member, was sent up to represent the firm.
I was asked to take part in the negotiations as a mutual friend of
both parties, and suggested the main conditions of the contract.
A summary of these will be found in the publication to which I have
already referred.

There was one provision the outcome of which was characteristic
of Alvan Clark & Sons. Struve, in testing some object glasses
which they had constructed and placed in their temporary tube,
found so great physical exertion necessary in pointing so rough
an instrument at any heavenly body with sufficient exactness,
that he could not form a satisfactory opinion of the object glass.
As he was to come over again when the glass was done, in order to
test it preliminary to acceptance, he was determined that no such
difficulty should arise. He therefore made a special provision
that $1000 extra, to be repaid by him, should be expended in making
a rough equatorial mounting in which he could test the instrument.
George Clark demurred to this, on the ground that such a mounting as
was necessary for this purpose could not possibly cost so much money.
But Struve persistently maintained that one to cost $1000 should
be made. The other party had to consent, but failed to carry out
this provision. The tube was, indeed, made large enough to test not
only Struve's glass but the larger one of the Lick Observatory, which,
though not yet commenced, was expected to be ready not long afterward.
Yet, notwithstanding this increase of size, I think the extra cost
turned out to be much less than $1000, and the mounting was so rough
that when Struve came over in 1883 to test the glass, he suffered
much physical inconvenience and met, if my memory serves me aright,
with a slight accident, in his efforts to use the rough instrument.

In points like this I do not believe that another