Samuel Smiles

“ They were no doubt surprised that an individual with but a very limited amount of education, and whose hours of labour were from five in the morning until ten or eleven at night, should be able to acquire so much knowledge on so profound a subject. Had he possessed a fair amount of education, and an assortment of scientific instruments and books, the world would have heard more about him. Should you ever find yourself," my correspondent concludes, "in his neighbourhood, and have a few hours to spare, you would have no reason to regret the time spent in his company." ”

“ He found that before he could make a good achromatic telescope it was necessary that he should calculate his curves from data depending upon the nature of the glass. He accordingly proceeded to study the optical laws of refraction, in which his knowledge of geometry and mathematics greatly helped him. And in course of time, by his rare and exquisite manipulative skill, he succeeded in constructing a four-inch refractor, or achromatic telescope, of admirable defining power. ”

“ And here I leave John Robertson, the contented Coupar Angus astronomer.
Some years ago I received from my friend Mr. Nasmyth a letter of introduction to the late Mr. Cooke of York, while the latter was still living. I did not present it at the time; but I now proposed to visit, on my return homewards, the establishment which he had founded at York for the manufacture of telescopes and other optical instruments. Indeed, what a man may do for himself as well as for science, cannot be better illustrated than by the life of this remarkable man. ”

“ If our finite minds were more capable of comprehension, what a glorious view of the grandeur of the Deity would be displayed to us in the contemplation of the centre and source of light and heat to the solar system. ”

“ He works on the Quay, but has a very decided taste for astronomy, his leisure time being spent in its study, with a great part of his earnings. I went there with some friends to see an immense telescope, which he has made almost entirely without aid, preparing the glasses as far as possible himself, and sending them away merely to have their concavity changed. He showed us all his treasures with the greatest delight, explaining in English, but substituting Welsh when at a loss. He has scarcely ever been at school, but has learnt English entirely from books. ”

“ These things entirely fill up my time.
"Do I intend always to remain a railway porter? Oh, yes; I am very comfortable! The company are very kind to me, and I hope I serve them faithfully. It is true Sheriff Barclay has, without my knowledge, recommended me to several well-known astronomers as an observer. But at my time of life changes are not to be desired. I am quite satisfied to go on as I am doing. My young people are growing up, and are willing to work for themselves. But come, sir," he concluded, "come into the garden, and look at the moon through my telescope." ”

“ Cooke, of an energetic young astronomer at Bainbridge, in the mountain-district of Yorkshire, who had not only been able to make a telescope of his own, but was an excellent photographer. He was not yet thirty years of age, but had encountered and conquered many difficulties. This is a sort of character which is more often to be met with in remote country places than in thickly-peopled cities. In the country a man is more of an individual; in a city he is only one of a multitude. ”

“ Life in the country is full of practical teachings; whereas life in the city may be degraded by frivolities and pleasures, which are too often the foes of work. Hence we have usually to go to out-of-the-way corners of the country for our hardest brain-workers. Contact with the earth is a great restorer of power; and it is to the country folks that we must ever look for the recuperative power of the nation as regards health, vigour, and manliness.
Bainbridge is a remote country village, situated among the high lands or Fells on the north-western border of Yorkshire. ”

“ I am at present engaged on the theory of the achromatic object-glass, with regard to spherical chromatism — a subject upon which, I believe, nearly all our text-books are silent, but one nevertheless of vital importance to the optician. I can only proceed very slowly with it, on account of having to grind and figure lenses for every step of the theory, to keep myself in the right track; as mere theorizing is apt to lead one very much astray, unless it be checked by constant experiment. ”

“ Cadwalladr Davies observed at the banquet, which took place on the following day: "The establishment of the new institution will mark the dawn of a new era in the history of the Welsh people. He looked to it, not only as a means of imparting academical knowledge to the students within its walls, but also as a means of raising the intellectual and moral tone of the whole people. They were fond of quoting the saying of a great English writer, that there was something Grecian in the Celtic race, and that the Celtic was the refining element in the British character ”

“ They required to attend school--for education is a thing that parents must not neglect, with a view to the future. However, about the year 1875, my attention was called to a cheap instrument advertised by Solomon--what he called his '5L. telescope.' I purchased one, and it tantalised me; for the power of the instrument was such as to teach me nothing of the surface of the planets. After using it for about two years, I sold it to a student, and then found that I had accumulated enough savings to enable me to buy my present instrument. ”

“ Knowing the deep interest you take in genius and merit in humble ranks, I beg to state to you an extraordinary case. John Robertson is a railway porter at Coupar Angus station. From early youth he has made the heavens his study. Night after night he looks above, and from his small earnings he has provided himself with a telescope which cost him about 30L. He sends notices of his observations to the scientific journals, under the modest initials of 'J.R.' He is a great favourite with the public ”

“ Vernon Harcourt, Dean of York. Cooke received an order for a telescope like his own; then he received other orders. At last he gave up teaching, and took to telescope making. He advanced step by step; and like a practical, thoughtful man, he invented special tools and machinery for the purpose of grinding and polishing his glasses. He opened a shop in York, and established himself as a professed maker of telescopes. He added to this the business of a general optician, his wife attending to the sale in the shop, while he himself attended to the workshop. ”

“ I have often seen the edge very rugged and uneven when groups of large spots were about to come round on the east side. I have communicated some of my observations to 'The Observatory,' the monthly review of astronomy, edited by Mr. Christie, now Astronomer Royal, [2] as well as to The Scotsman, and some of our local papers. [3]
"I have also taken up the observation of variable stars in a limited portion of the heavens. That, and 'hunting for comets' is about all the real astronomical work that an amateur can do nowadays in our climate, with a three-inch telescope. ”

“ When I left the Bleachfield Works, I went to Inverury, to the North of Scotland Railway, which was then in course of formation; and for many years, being immersed in work, I thought comparatively little of astronomy. It remained, however, a pleasant memory. It was only after coming to this neighbourhood in 1854, when the railway to Blairgowrie was under construction, that I began to read up a little, during my leisure hours, on the subject of astronomy. ”

“ Newall, a gentleman who, connected with those who were among the first to recognise the genius of our great English optician, Cooke, did not hesitate to risk thousands of pounds in one great experiment, the success of which will have a most important bearing upon the astronomy of the future. ”

“ His best lenses are made by himself: those which he buys are not to be depended upon. The best flint glass is obtained from Paris in blocks, which he divides, grinds, and polishes to perfect form.
I was attracted by a newly made machine, placed on a table in the sitting-room; and on inquiry found that its object was to grind and polish lenses. Mr. Lancaster explained that the difficulty to be overcome in a good machine, is to make the emery cut the surface equally from centre to edge of the lens, so that the lens will neither lengthen nor shorten the curve during its production. ”

“ His astronomical work is altogether a labour of love. It is his hobby; and the working man may have his hobby as well as the rich. In his case he is never less idle than when idle. Some may think that he is casting his bread upon the waters, and that he may find it after many days. But it is not with this object that he carries on his leisure-hour pursuits. ”

“ Our minds cannot imagine motion without some Power moving through the medium of some subordinate agency, ever acting on the sun, to send such floods of light and heat to our otherwise cold and dark terrestrial ball ”

“ Everybody liked him, for his diligence, his application, and his good sense. At the age of seventeen he was employed to teach the sons of the neighbouring farmers. He succeeded so well that in the following year he opened a village school at Beilby. He went on educating himself, and learnt a little of everything. He next removed his school to Kirpenbeck, near Stamford Bridge; and it was there," proceeded Mrs. Cooke, "that I got to know him, for I was one of his pupils."
"He first learned mathematics by buying an old volume at a bookstall, with a spare shilling. ”

“ It is a refractor, made by Cooke and Sons of York. The object glass is three inches; the focal length forty-three inches; and the telescope, when drawn out, with the pancratic eyepiece attached, is about four feet. It was made after Mr. Robertson's directions, and is a sort of combination of instruments.
"Even that instrument," he proceeded, "good as it is for the money, tantalises me yet. A look through a fixed equatorial, such as every large observatory is furnished with is a glorious view. ”

“ It is much too short for all that I propose to do. My evenings are my own. When the heavens are clear, I watch them; when obscured, there are my books and letters.
"Dr. Alexander Brown, of Arbroath, is one of my correspondents. I have sent him my drawings of the rings of Saturn, of Jupiter's belt and satellites. Dr. Ralph Copeland, of Dunecht, is also a very good friend and adviser. Occasionally, too, I send accounts of solar disturbances, comet a within sight, eclipses, and occultations, to the Scotsman, the Dundee Evening Telegraph and Evening News, or to the Blairgowrie Advertiser. ”

“ Mr. Cooke was put to his mettle towards the close of his life. A contest had long prevailed among telescope makers as to who should turn out the largest refracting instrument. The two telescopes of fifteen inches aperture, prepared by Merz and Mahler, of Munich, were the largest then in existence. Their size was thought quite extraordinary. But in 1846, Mr. Alvan Clark, of Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, U.S., spent his leisure hour's in constructing small telescopes. [9] He was not an optician, nor a mathematician, but a portrait painter. ”

“ We have wet, dry, cold, and warm years, but they are never general. The kind of season which prevails in one country is often quite reversed in another perhaps in the adjacent one. Not so with our auroral displays. They are universal on both sides of the globe; and from pole to pole the magnetic needle trembles during their continuance. Some authorities are of opinion that these eleven-year cycles are subject to a larger cycle, but sun-spot observations have not existed long enough to determine this point. For myself, I have a great difficulty in forming an opinion. ”

“ The force requisite to pour such continuous floods to the remotest parts of the system must ever baffle the mind of man to grasp. But we are not to sit down in indolence: our duty is to inquire into Nature's works, though we can never exhaust the field. ”

“ The sheave merely serves as a guide to the tool in its path, and the lens may either be worked on the turn-table or upon a chuck attached to the tool rod. The work upon the lens is thus to a great extent independent of the error of the machine through shaking, or bad fitting, or wear; and the only part of the machine which requires really first-class work is the axis of the turn-table, which (in this machine) is a conical bearing at top, with steel centre below, — the bearing turned, hardened, and then ground up true, and run in anti-friction metal. ”

“ He took me into his sitting-room, where I inspected his drawings of the sun-spots, made in colour on a large scale. In all his statements he was perfectly modest and unpretending. The following is his story, so far as I can recollect, in his own words: — "Yes; I certainly take a great interest in astronomy, but I have done nothing in it worthy of notice. I am scarcely worthy to be called a day labourer in the science. ”