, and how much of it
is ready for the press, I cannot say. My impression is that it
is in that condition known in household language as "all done but
finishing." Whether it will ever appear is a question for the future.
All the men who took part in it or who understood its details are
either dead or on the retired list, and it is difficult for one not
familiar with it from the beginning to carry it to completion.

[1] For the incidents connected with the English observations of
this transit, the author is indebted to Vice-Admiral W. H. Smyth's
curious and rare book, _Speculum Hartwellianum_, London, 1860.
It and other works of the same author may be described as queer and
interesting jumbles of astronomical and other information, thrown
into an interesting form; and, in the case of the present work,
spread through a finely illustrated quarto volume of nearly five
hundred pages.

[2] "The War Department got ahead of us in the matter of furniture,"
said an officer of the Navy Department to me long afterwards, when
the furniture for the new department building was being obtained.
"They knew enough to ask for a third more than they wanted; we reduced
our estimate to the lowest point. Both estimates were reduced one
third by the Appropriations Committee. The result is that they have
all the furniture they want, while we are greatly pinched."

[3] As this result would not be possible under our present system,
which was introduced by the first Cleveland administration, I might
remark that it resulted from a practice on the part of the Treasury
of lumping appropriations on its books in order to simplify the
keeping of the accounts.

VII

THE LICK OBSERVATORY

In the wonderful development of astronomical research in our country
during the past twenty years, no feature is more remarkable than
the rise on an isolated mountain in California of an institution
which, within that brief period, has become one of the foremost
observatories of the world. As everything connected with the early
history of such an institution must be of interest, it may not be
amiss if I devote a few pages to it.

In 1874 the announcement reached the public eye that James Lick, an
eccentric and wealthy Californian, had given his entire fortune to
a board of trustees to be used for certain public purposes, one of
which was the procuring of the greatest and most powerful telescope
that had ever been made. There was nothing in the previ