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By Root 570 0

in the Diablo Range, some forty miles from the sea, was known to early settlers as La Sierra de Ysabel. The first to record an ascent to its uppermost reaches were William Brewer, a geologist who worked on California's first complete geological survey, and Charles Hoffman, a topographer. Laurentine Hamilton, then a Presbyterian minister from San Jose, tagged along for the 1861 summertime adventure. While journeying over the lower elevations the men used mules but struggled over the last three miles on foot. With the two scientists burdened down by their heavy equipment, the minister was able to sprint ahead, pushing through the chaparral, mesquite, and thick groves of scrub oak that filled the mountain's furrowed sides like well-sprinkled seasoning. Upon reaching the summit, Hamilton waved his hat in the air and exclaimed, “First on top, for this is the highest point.” In honor of the achievement, Brewer graciously named the peak after his “noble and true” friend.

Within three decades Mount Hamilton was the site of a radical new endeavor in astronomy. Fueled by America's escalating wealth, “the public mind in this country is now directed to the importance of original scientific research,” wrote Joseph Henry, head of the Smithsonian Institution, in 1874 to the noted English biologist Thomas Huxley, “and I think there is good reason to believe that some of the millionaires who have risen from poverty to wealth will in due time seek to perpetuate their names by founding establishments for the purpose in question.” In the vanguard to answer that call was San Francisco entrepreneur James Lick, who funded the world's first astronomical observatory permanently established at high elevation. Before this, professional telescopes were routinely constructed in relatively low-lying areas, near major cities or on university campuses for easy access.

In 1888, from its commanding perch atop Mount Hamilton, the Lick Observatory began operating the largest telescope in its day, which featured a pair of imposing lenses a full yard wide to gather and magnify the celestial light. It was the same type of telescope through which Galileo first peered, one that directed the light through two aligned pieces of glass, but the diameter of the Lick instrument was a couple of dozen times larger. Its founder spared no expense to house this giant refractor. The massive building was designed in a classical style by Washington architect S. E. Todd. From afar, it appeared as if a European palace had been magically transported to the American West. Inside its dome, hand-carved moldings decorated the walls. The floors were curved wooden planks, polished to a sheen and stylishly following the shape of the circular dome. Tourists traveled on stagecoach for hours for a glimpse of this new wonder of the scientific world.

Unbeknownst to those visitors, though, the most innovative work at Lick was actually being done in more modest surroundings, about a quarter of a mile south of the showstopping telescope, at the end of a mountain spur known as Ptolemy Ridge. There, in a far smaller dome that resembles a quaint medieval chapel, James Keeler labored to put a reflecting telescope into operation, which used a silvered mirror instead of a lens to magnify its image. It was an instrument that everyone warned him would be nothing but trouble. Big-lensed refractors were the telescopes of choice in the late 1800s, but Keeler bravely broke from that tradition, establishing an approach in professional astronomy that eventually spread to every major observatory throughout the world.

Lick Observatory, c. 1910. The 36-inch telescope is housed

in the big dome; the smaller Crossley-telescope dome is at the far left.

(Mary Lea Shane Archives of the Lick Observatory, University Library,

University of California-Santa Cruz)

Though now reduced to a minor figure in many histories of astronomy, Keeler was actually a forerunner to the birth of modern cosmology, a crucial player in helping launch the new field. A man who could manipulate a spectroscope like no other, he pioneered