was $700,000, of which nearly $200,000 will remain after the observatory is completed. The income from this sum must support the observatory for the present. Although the whole plan of the observatory has been made with direct referencce to keeping its running expenses low, it is clear that the company of astronomers will have to be kept small. The work of these observers must be concentrated on the large equatorial, and even then their energies will not be sufficient to utilize every moment. It is not our intention to jealously guard the immense scientific opportunity for ourselves, for California, or even for the United States. The real gift of Mr. Lick was to the world. We mean to put the large telescope at the disposition of the world, by inviting its most distinguished astronomers to visit us, one at a time; and to give them the use of the instrument during certain specific hours of the twenty-four. Each day there will be certain hours set apart when the observatory staff will relinquish the use of the equatorial to distinguished specialists who will come upon our invitation from the United States and from Europe to solve or to attack some one of the many unsolved problems of astronomy. In this way we hope to make the gift of Mr. Lick one which is truly a gift to science, and not merely a gift to California and to its University.

Even under such circumstances it will be impossible to utilize the instrumental outfit to the full. It was clearly the duty of the Lick trustees to make this observatory perfect in every respect, and to provide it. with all the instruments necessary to a complete equipment. This they have done economically and wisely. So far as I can. judge, there is nothing that should be altered. The instruments are all necessary, and they are mounted in the most perfect manner. Each one is directly subordinate to the large equatorial and accessory to it. Nothing has been purchased, and no work has been done, which does not directly tend to

make the observations made by the large equatorial either more complete, or more immediately useful. The cost of the whole observatory may fairly be said to be the cost of the great telescope in place, and entirely ready for work. The objective itself has cost $52,000. The photographic lens will add $13,000 to this. The mounting which is to carry the tube of nearly sixty. feet in length, is to be made and delivered for $42,000. The dome, of seventy feet interior diameter, will be built in San Francisco, and I have no doubt that it will be materially better than any now made. The chief novelty will be the adoption of Mr. Grubb's ingenious plan for placing the observer in a proper position with reference to his telescope. We have to recollect that the eye-piece of the telescope may be about five feet from the floor of the dome when the telescope is pointed to the zenith, or it may be thirty-five feet in the horizontal posi tion. The ordinary observing chair, which is convenient enough when it is not more than sixteen feet high, becomes a cumbrous and inconvenient affair when it is extended

The

to thirty-five feet. Mr. Grubb proposed to to remedy this by raising the whole floor of the dome like an elevator, to the proper height. The whole floor will be raised vertically a distance of sixteen and one-half feet by four screws. The ascent is made in four minutes with a perfectly parallel motion. The water supply for this purpose comes from the watershed of the dome itself. last mechanical difficulty is now overcome, and it is expected that the steel dome will be mounted during the present year, or at least in the spring of 1887. The contract price for the dome delivered and erected is $56,800, and for the moving floor $14,250. The sum of these items is $178,000 and if this is increased by others not named here it will raise the cost of the large instrument in place to $200,000. The preparation of the top of the mountain to receive the buildings, the erection of the buildings themselves and

the observers' houses, and above all the provision of an adequate water supply has been covered by the remaining $300,000.

With faithfulness on the part of the company of astronomers to which this magnificent equipment is confided, and with the

generous support of the friends of science in California, much may be expected to follow from this splendid gift to America and to the world.

Edward S. Holden.

[The following story was written many years ago by a Virginian, who died without offering it for publication. Recently the manuscript was found among a collection. of pamphlets which had once belonged to his library, but which had come into the possession of a dealer in second hand books. Other tales about the colonists at Roanoke have been told, but the plot and ending of this one are quite different from those of preceding ones, and as the author was evidently fully persuaded of the authenticity of the records which he used, there is no reason why others should doubt them. The following is the complete story as written by him.]

A FEW months ago, while I was rummaging among old-fashioned spinning wheels, trunks, books, and other neglected heirlooms, in garret of an ancient dwelling house in the southern part of Virginia, I stumbled upon a dust covered Bible, which, to all appearances, had not been opened for a hundred years or more.

Deeming it to be of no greater value than most of the antiquarian rubbish lying around it, I merely opened it carelessly, and then, tossing it aside, thought no more about it. for the time. At the dinner table, however, I made some casual remark about my having found it, and learned then that the family knew not how it had come there, for it had passed with the house from generation to generation without being touched, save when romping children used it in their sports as a footstool, or when now and then it was pushed away to make room for decrepit

furniture.

After dinner the old darkey who had waited upon us, calling me aside, said that in his boyhood's days there was a tradition current, that the Bible had been given to the founder of the family by an Indian chief, and that the Indians had been very anxious to be rid of it, for the writing in it, unintelligible to them, had filled their minds with fear lest it might afflict them with an evil spirit.

I had noticed the writing, but believed it was only the scribbling of children. The old man's statements led me to examine the book more carefully. After considerable study, I was surprised and delighted to find that on the margins of the pages and between the widely separated lines of black letter type was written, in the form of a diary, a minute record of the doings and sufferings of the colony, which had been sent to America by Sir Walter Raleigh, but which had disappeared from the civilized world soon after their governor's return to England in 1587.

With great pains-taking, I copied the journal of Sydney More,--for that was the name of the industrious scribe--and it was fortunate that I did so, for the dwelling with its contents, including the old Bible, was destroyed by fire soon afterwards.

So deeply impressed was I by the sad romance that could be distinctly read between the lines of the record, that I was moved to combine some of the chief incidents in this sketch. To explain certain allusions in my story, it may be well, however, to state briefly what, until the present time, had been

known about the colony.

Undaunted by the failure of former attempts to settle Virginia, Sir Walter Raleigh, in 1587, again sent thither a band of emigrants with John White as governor. Although Raleigh had commanded that the colony should be planted somewhere on the present Chesapeake Bay, it was found necessary to settle in July on Roanoke Island. During the next few weeks the foundations of "the City of Raleigh" were laid. Manteo, the faithful Indian ally of the colonists, was baptized and dubbed Lord of Roanoke; and, on the eighteenth of August, Virginia Dare was born. She was the granddaughter of White, who, nine days after her birth, embarked for England to fetch back more supplies for the colony. Unforeseen occurrences prevented his return for over two years. When he again reached Roanoke, the colonists had disappeared, leaving no clue to their whereabouts save the word CROATAN inscribed upon a post. A storm induced him to relinquish further search for them, and when he turned again towards England, they were lost to history, and would have remained so, had not the record been discovered. The full account of the planting of the colony, and of White's return voyage, may be found in Captain John Smith's "General Historie, Etc.," published in London in 1627.

With this short introduction I shall now relate my story of the colonists, which I have endeavored to make as readable as imagination with strict regard for the facts will allow.

I.

IT WAS with sad hearts that the one hundred colonists remaining saw White's ship disappear below the horizon. The accident to the sailors at the weighing of the anchor was ill omened, and when at last the cable had to be cut, it seemed to many that the only tie that bound them to the old world had been severed. Nevertheless they set to

work with right good will to make themselves comfortable for the few weeks that were to pass before they should depart for the mainland.

By the middle of the following October, all preparations for removal had been completed, and men, women, and children embarked in canoes provided by the Indians. The houses had been taken down; the building materials, which had been brought from England, had been rafted to the mainland; the heavier articles, such as ordnance, heavy shot, superfluous utensils, etc., had been buried; and Ananias Dare, the father of Virginia, in accordance with instructions. from White, had cut on one of the posts that formed part of the palisade around their buried treasures, in large capitals, the name of their destination, CROATAN. There they spent the winter and spring, awaiting the return of the Governor (upon which they expected to return to the island), and learning to understand and to appreciate more fully the fidelity of Manteo.

But in July, when they were daily expecting the return of the English ships, when Eleanor Dare with her infant in her arms was wont every morning to take her place on the brow of a lofty hill, and to sit there for hours watching for the white. sails of her father's vessel to appear far out at sea, Manteo announced that a plot for their destruction was forming among the neighboring Mangoaks; that this tribe had set apart the seventeenth of the month to fall upon the Croatans and their guests, and to slaughter all.

During the few days that would elapse before that time, the Mangoaks would be engaged in their midsummer feast ;' and while that continued, nothing could induce them to use their weapons in warfare. At that time it was customary for all the members of the tribe to assemble within their fortified town to indulge in eating, drinking, and barbarous dances. Manteo, therefore, urged the English to take advantage of this respite,

either by withdrawing quietly to the island, where they might prepare themselves more perfectly against a heavy attack and possibly siege, or by accompanying the Croatans in secret flight to the mountains, where all would be safe from their savage foes.

The latter suggestion met with the approval of the colonists. Hasty was their departure. Little time was there for useless lamentation and vain regrets at relinquishing the hope of succor from their returning friends; ten hours after Manteo revealed the plot, they had started for the wilderness.

The white women and children were borne on rudely constructed benches by their dusky sisters; the younger men walked, carrying the light tools and utensils, and driving the few remaining cattle; while a picked number of musketeers, with the Indian males, formed a guard before and behind the train. Thus for many days they journeyed--now passing over sterile districts, which barely supported the growth of scrubby pines, now pushing through the tangled undergrowth of the luxuriant primeval forests; crossing streams by fording, or upon rafts hastily made and almost breaking with the weight of their burdens; ascending steep. hills, from which could be obtained glimpses of the distant mountains, almost as blue as the vault above them; and then decending into valleys filled with miasmal exhalations.

At length, after many weary wanderings, they came to a pleasant site for their permanent home--a level stretch of country covered with tall prairie grass, whose billowy heavings reminded them of the ocean far behind them. Tall spurs of the mountains hedged it in on every side.

The settlement, named Roanoke, was made here. Within a tall palisade were built neat rows of houses; at the corners of the fortification were raised tall watch towers; and around the whole was dug a deep ditch, over which was placed one bridge, which could be drawn up in time of danger.

Within five or six years a large area of the

surrounding plain had been fenced in to prevent stray cattle from wandering into the mountain forests, and to exclude wild beasts. A part of this area was tilled, and in other parts sleek cattle grazed. The little settlement was in every respect flourishing, and the Indians and the whites, interested in the same undertakings, and living in daily intercourse with one another, were becoming more affiliated as the years passed. The Indians, by nature inclined to roam through forests and to follow warlike pursuits, had been persuaded to throw aside much of their savagery, and some had become excellent farmers and mechanics. Their squaws had adopted costumes patterned after those of the English women, while these had been obliged to use in their garments the same materials as their allies used. Unity and contentment prevailed and it seemed as if nothing could interfere with the evenness of their existence.

To mortals, however, is not given the power to see very far into futurity.

II.

ONE beautiful evening in May, 1610, a number of the young people of the settlement, their day's work being over, were gathered before the door of Roger Prat's cabin. He had been one of the original assistants of Raleigh's colony, and was the minister of the little settlement in the heart

of the mountains. He had buried many of the older colonists, had joined in marriage the younger men and women, and had baptized their children. In his kindly old heart he had a soft place for all the young people growing up around him; while they on the other hand relied upon his good judgment and sound advice in their little perplexities, and shared with him their joys and sorrows. The old parson, now bending under the weight of seventy years, and patiently awaiting the summons to lay aside his earthly burdens, was never more pleased than

when the youths and maidens collected round his doorstep and listened eagerly to his narration of the colony's history, his descriptions of life in England, his reminiscences of their patron, Raleigh, and his fatherly counsels. They never wearied of his stories, to which his well-stored mind always lent a freshness, notwithstanding constant repetition of details. For, in spite of his great age, Roger Prat's mind was as clear and his voice as firm as ever.

Among the dozen Indians and whites that composed the old man's audience that evening, were four persons who were to play no unimportant parts, directly or indirectly, in the later history of the colony. At the minister's feet, with her eager face turned toward his, sat Virginia Dare. She was a young woman of medium height and wellproportioned figure; her complexion was dark and clear; and beneath a low brow, crowned with rippling black hair, her straightforward gray eyes looked out from below long lashes. Some called her beautiful; and, indeed, her sweet, even disposition, her calmness in emergencies, and her willingness to oblige caused her to be admired by all the men folk in the community, while at the same time--in apparent contradiction of all known human experience--she was equally beloved by nearly all the women. No one was more ready than she to watch through dreary night hours beside the sick or dying; no one knew better how to alleviate the fancied wrongs of little children, or to dispel the cares of the elders. But no man had yet persuaded her to leave her girlhood's home and to lavish all her tenderness upon him.

By her side, from which he was seldom absent on such occasions, Jack Coge, the son of Anthony Coge, lay stretched at ease upon the grass. His face was a contradictory one when he addressed Virginia it was bright and open, but if she spoke or listened to other men, it would lose its sunshine, and cloud ominously, and into his dark eyes

would creep a look like an Italian assassin. His father, who had been a gay young Englishman, had taken service under the Emperor Maximilian II, and in his wanderings through Europe, had been fascinated by the tropic charms of an Italian peasant girl. Jack was their only child, and he had inherited from his mother all the cunning of her diplomatic race. This characteristic, hitherto dormant, needed only an occasion to become manifest. He thought he loved Virginia; but those sullen looks belied his belief, for perfect love casteth out jealousy.

Among the hearers, most conspicuous by his noble bearing, stood Sydney More, secretary of the council, and successor to his father in the responsible position of physician. In his heart he had long done homage to Virginia, but as his attentions to her had been of an undemonstrative kind, neither she nor anybody else suspected the real state of his feelings, and it is doubtful. whether he himself thoroughly understood. them.

Near by him, engaged in tipping an arrow with feathers, was his constant companion, Ensenore, the son of Manteo, the savior of the whites. Manteo had many years before gone to the land of the Great Spirit, and though he had been beloved by all, yet no one felt his loss more keenly than Virginia; and it was due to this that she had become and remained the firm friend of his son.

Roger Prat was telling them of the terrible deeds of St. Bartholomew's Day in France --how a fearful shudder ran through England at the news, and how Queen Elizabeth and her court in deep mourning attire, had received the French ambassador.

But in the midst of his narration he suddenly paused, and pointing towards the west, said: "See that dark cloud coming up over the mountains yonder. We shall have a thunder storm directly. Run away home, children, and you may hear the rest of my story at some other time.”

They all scattered in various directions,