with most acute vision, saw the companion with an instrument no larger
than this small one in my hand--one inch and three-tenths. Ward saw it
with an inch and one-quarter objective, and Dawson with so small an
aperture as one inch. T.T. Smith has seen it with a reflector stopped
down to one inch and one-quarter, while in the instrument still known
as the "great Dorpat reflector," it has been seen in broad daylight.
This historic telescope has, I believe, a twelve inch object glass,
but the difficulty of seeing in sunshine so minute a star is such that
the fact may fairly be mentioned here.

Another interesting feature is this. Objects once discovered, though
thought to be visible in large telescopes only, may often be seen in
much smaller ones. The first Herschel said truly that less optical
power will show an object than was required for its discovery. The
rifts, or canals, in the Great Nebula in Andromeda is a case in point,
but two better illustrations may be taken from the planets. Though
Saturn was for many years subjected to most careful scrutiny by
skilled astronomers using the most powerful telescopes in existence,
the crape ring eluded discovery until November, 1850, when it was
independently seen by Dawes, in England, and Bond, in the United
States. Both were capital observers and employed excellent instruments
of large aperture, and it was naturally presumed that only such
instruments could show the novel Saturnian feature. Not so. Once
brought to the attention of astronomers, Webb saw the new ring with
his three and seven-tenths telescope and Ross with an aperture not
exceeding three and three-eighths in diameter. Nay, I am permitted to
say that a venerable member of this society made drawings of it with a
three inch refractor. With a two inch objective, Grover not only saw
the crape ring, but Saturn's belts, as well, and the shadow cast by
the ball of the planet upon its system of rings. Titan, Saturn's