ror 16 feet in diameter.
Although it was so colossal it was not comparable to the telescope
10,000 feet long which the astronomer Hooke proposed to construct some
years ago. Nevertheless the setting up of such an apparatus presented
great difficulties.

The question of its site was promptly settled. It must be upon a high
mountain, and high mountains are not numerous in the States.

In fact, the orographical system of this great country only contains two
chains of average height, amongst which flows the magnificent
Mississippi, which the Americans would call the "king of rivers" if they
admitted any royalty whatever.

On the east rise the Apalachians, the very highest point of which, in
New Hampshire, does not exceed the very moderate altitude of 5,600 feet.

On the west are, however, the Rocky Mountains, that immense chain which
begins at the Straits of Magellan, follows the west coast of South
America under the name of the Andes or Cordilleras, crosses the Isthmus
of Panama, and runs up the whole of North America to the very shores of
the Polar Sea.

These mountains are not very high, and the Alps or Himalayas would look
down upon them with disdain. In fact, their highest summit is only
10,701 feet high, whilst Mont Blanc is 14,439, and the highest summit of
the Himalayas is 26,776 feet above the level of the sea.

But as the Gun Club wished that its telescope, as well as the Columbiad,
should be set up in the States of the Union, they were obliged to be
content with the Rocky Mountains, and all the necessary material was
sent to the summit of Long's Peak in the territory of Missouri.

Neither pen nor language could relate the difficulties of every kind
that the American engineers had to overcome, and the prodigies of
audacity and skill that they accomplished. Enormous stones, massive
pieces of wrought-iron, heavy corner-clamps, and huge portions of
cylinder had to be raised with an object-glass, weighing nearly 30,000
lbs., above the line of perpetual snow for more than 10,000 feet in
height, after crossing desert prairies, impenetrable forests, fearful
rapids far from all centres of population, and in the midst of savage
regions in which every detail of life becomes an insoluble problem, and,
nevertheless, American genius triumphed over all these obstacles. Less
than a year after beginning the works in the last days of the month of
September, the gigantic reflector rose in the air to a height of 280
feet. It