Edward Morley

“ If we could vary the period of this tide at will by controlling the revolutions of the earth, we should doubtless get a result sooner by accelerating the latter and making a great number of observations in a given time, rather than by retarding the period in order to measure with very great precision the hourly height of a barometer. ”

“ We found by trial how much a weight of a hundred grams displaced our fringes, and so learned, as was known before, that the influence of the earth's magnetism could not be a disturbing factor.
The Rumford Committee of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences having made a grant in aid of this experiment, we carried out our original plan of making a steel structure so rigid as to permit easy and satisfactory observation. In this new apparatus all the optical parts are carried by a steel frame built of plate and angle-iron, somewhat like a bridge girder. ”

“ The observing telescope of an inch and a half aperture with a magnifying power of thirty-five is attached to a support bolted to the steel frame. The acetylene lamp and the four-inch condensing lens stand on a wooden shelf as far as convenient from the mirrors, which are protected by asbestos screens with air spaces. The whole path of light through the apparatus is enclosed by a wooden cover made of pine seven eighths of an inch thick, having doors and glass windows where these are required. The observer's eyes are protected from extraneous light by a dark cloth. ”