It is crowned with a hemispherical dome, which, I may
remark, half realizes the idea of my egg-shell studio. This dome is
cleft from its base to its summit by a narrow, ribbon-like opening,
through which is seen the naked sky. It revolves on cannon-balls, so
easily that a single hand can move it, and thus the opening may be turned
towards any point of the compass. As the telescope can be raised or
depressed so as to be directed to any elevation from the horizon to the
zenith, and turned around the entire circle with the dome, it can be
pointed to any part of the heavens. But as the star or other celestial
object is always apparently moving, in consequence of the real rotatory
movement of the earth, the telescope is made to follow it automatically
by an ingenious clock-work arrangement. No place, short of the temple of
the living God, can be more solemn. The jars of the restless life around
it do not disturb the serene intelligence of the half-reasoning
apparatus. Nothing can stir the massive pier but the shocks that shake
the solid earth itself. When an earthquake thrills the planet, the
massive turret shudders with the shuddering rocks on which it rests, but
it pays no heed to the wildest tempest, and while the heavens are
convulsed and shut from the eye of the far-seeing instrument it waits
without a tremor for the blue sky to come back.
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