But such is not the case. The most important
requisite, one more difficult to command than telescopes or
observatories, may still be wanting. A great telescope is of no
use without a man at the end of it, and what the telescope may do
depends more upon this appendage than upon the instrument itself.
The place which telescopes and observatories have taken in
astronomical history are by no means proportional to their
dimensions. Many a great instrument has been a mere toy in the
hands of its owner. Many a small one has become famous.
Twenty years ago there was here in your own city a modest little
instrument which, judged by its size, could not hold up its head
with the great ones even of that day. It was the private property
of a young man holding no scientific position and scarcely known
to the public. And yet that little telescope is to-day among the
famous ones of the world, having made memorable advances in the
astronomy of double stars, and shown its owner to be a worthy
successor of the Herschels and Struves in that line of work.
A hundred observers might have used the appliances of the Lick
Observatory for a whole generation without finding the fifth
satellite of Jupiter; without successfully photographing the cloud
forms of the Milky Way; without discovering the extraordinary
patches of nebulous light, nearly or quite invisible to the human
eye, which fill some regions of the heavens.
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