I trust it has been shown that expensive telescopes are not necessarily required for practical work.  My advice to an intending purchaser would be to put into the objective for a refractor, or into the mirror for a reflector, all the money he feels warranted in spending, leaving the mounting to be done in the cheapest possible manner consistent with accuracy of adjustment, because it is in the objective or in the mirror that the value of the telescope alone resides.  In the shops may be found many telescopes gorgeous in polished tubes and brass mountings which, for effective work, are absolutely worthless.  On this subject, I consulted the most eminent of all discoverers of double stars, an observer who, even as an amateur, made a glorious reputation by the work done with a six inch telescope.  I refer to Mr. S.W.  Burnham, of the Lick Observatory, who, in reply, kindly wrote:  “You will certainly have no difficulty in making out a strong case in favor of the use of small telescopes in many departments of important astronomical work.  Most of the early telescopic work was done with instruments which would now be considered as inferior to modern instruments, in quality as well as in size.  You are doubtless familiar with much of the amateur work, in this country and elsewhere, done with comparatively small apertures. The most important condition is to have the refractor, whatever its size may be, of the highest optical perfection, and then the rest will depend on the zeal and industry of the observer.”  The italics are mine.

Incidentally, it may be mentioned that much most interesting work may be done even with an opera glass, as a few minutes’ systematic observation on any fine night will prove.  Newcomb and Holden assure us that “if Hipparchus had had even such an optical instrument, mankind need not have waited two thousand years to know the nature of the Milky Way, nor would it have required a Galilei to discover the phases of Venus or the spots on the sun.”  To amplify the thought, if that mighty geometer and observer and some of his contemporaries had possessed but the “common telescope,” is it not probable that in the science of astronomy the world would have been to-day two thousand years in advance of its present position?

* * * * *

ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES AT CADIZ.

Those who have had the good fortune to visit Andalusia, that privileged land of the sun, of light, songs, dances, beautiful girls, and bull fighters, preserve, among many other poetical and pleasing recollections, that of election to antique and smiling Cadiz—­the “pearl of the ocean and the silver cup,” as the Andalusians say in their harmonious and imaginative language.  There is, in fact, nothing exaggerated in these epithets, for they translate a true impression.  Especially if we arrive by sea, there is nothing so thrilling as the dazzling silhouette which, from afar, is reflected all white from the mirror of a gulf almost always blue.