6. THE GREAT TELESCOPE. The refracting telescope of the Lick Observatory wears the belt at present as the largest in the world. It has a clear aperture of thirty-six inches. A disk of flint-glass for the object-lens, thirty-eight inches across and one hundred and seventy kilogrammes in weight, was cast at the establishment of M. Feil, in Paris, early in 1882. It may be regarded as the highest triumph so far achieved in the art of optical glass-making. This great glass, it is supposed, will apparently bring the moon down to within thirty miles of the earth, and will no doubt spy out new worlds on the confines of creation which have never yet been gazed upon by man.
7. LICK OBSERVATORY. (Inner coast range. Elevation, 4440 feet.) Situated about fifty-five miles southeast of San Francisco, Mount Hamilton lies far enough inland to escape the sea-fog, which rarely drifts up to its lofty crest, the best authorities granting it to be the finest observing location in the United States. The late James Lick selected this spot himself, spending a night upon this lonely summit after he had passed his eightieth year, and made a clause in his will granting $700,000 for the erection of a telescope " superior to, and more powerful than, any ever yet made." At the present writing the observatory is about completed, and ready to be turned over to the State University, and is already classed as one of California's great wonders, being all and more than its famous projector had dreamed of.
8 & 15. CHINESE BUILDINGS. Chinatown as a whole (sometimes spelled without a w), is doubtless a rather deep-stained blot on the fair escutcheon of San Francisco. But there are some redeeming features of interest in it — one in particular being the queer things sold and eaten, which look like neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, and yet a combination of all three. Travellers should take a walk -through the stores, and notice among other things the stolid and highly philosophical way the Celestials have of dispensing groceries and other strange-looking and questionable edibles; but if they want a really good cup of tea, or a splendid dinner, don't go to a Chinese restaurant!