ught them. He also bought for me, at a bookstall, the Greek Lexicon
and the Greek New Testament, for which he paid 7s. 6d. With my new
telescope I could see Jupiter's four satellites, the craters on the
moon, and some of the double stars. It was a wonderful pleasure to me.

"But I was not satisfied with the instrument. I wanted a bigger and a
more perfect one. I sold it and got new glasses from Solomon of
London, who was always ready to trust me. I think it was about the
year 1868 that I began to make a reflecting telescope. I got a rough
disc of glass, from St. Helens, of ten inches diameter. It took me
from nine to ten days to grind and polish it ready for parabolising and
silvering. I did this by hand labour with the aid of emery, but
without a lathe. I finally used rouge instead of emery in grinding
down the glass, until I could see my face in the mirror quite plain. I
then sent the 8 3/16 inch disc to Mr. George Calver, of Chelmsford, to
turn my spherical curve to a parabolic curve, and to silver the mirror,
for which I paid him 5L. I mounted this in my timber tube; the focus
was ten feet. When everything was complete I tried my instrument on
the sky, and found it to have good defining power. The diameter of the
other glass I have made is a little under six inches.

"You ask me if their performance satisfies me? Well; I have compared
my six-inch reflector with a 4 1/4 inch refractor, through my window,
with a power of 100 and 140. I can't say which was the best. But if
out on a clear night I think my reflector would take more power than
the refractor. However that may be, I saw the snowcap on the planet
Mars quite plain; and it is satisfactory to me so far. With respect to
the 8 3/16 inch glass, I am not quite satisfied with it yet; but I am
making improvements, and I believe it will reward my labour in the end."

Besides these instruments John Jones has an equatorial which is mounted
on a tripod stand, made by himself. It contains the right ascension,
declination, and azimuth index, all neatly carved upon slate. In his
spectroscope he makes his prisms out of the skylights used in vessels.
These he grinds down to suit his purpose. I have not been able to go
into the complete detail of the manner in which he effects the grinding
of his glasses. It is perhaps too technical to be illustrated in words,
which are full of focuses, parabolas, and convexities. But enough may
be gathered from the abo