Lick Observatory

a department of the University of California. It was built in 1876 on the summit of Mount Hamilton about twenty-six miles by road from San Jose. It is situated in a tract of about 3,000 acres granted by the government. The observatory was founded by virtue of a bequest made by James Lick. He was a wealthy piano manufacturer of Philadelphia. He invested his earnings largely in California real estate. In 1874 he placed property worth $3,000,000 in the hands of trustees with instructions that $700,000 should be used in purchasing and housing "a telescope superior to and more powerful than any telescope yet made." The site described has proved satisfactory. The summit of the mountain was blasted away to secure a level platform. The air is clear. The site being remote from railway trains is without tremors. The observatory and the great telescope and its accessories cost about $610,000. The lenses were cast in Paris and ground by Clark, the telescope maker of Cambridge, Massachusetts. The objective lens is thirty-six inches in diameter and has a focal length of fifty-six feet and two inches. The telescope tube alone weighs three tons. The observatory is equipped thoroughly with photographic apparatus. Those in charge are engaged constantly in making photographic maps of the heavens and in recording observations. Among the positive discoveries made may be mentioned a fifth satellite of Jupiter and a dozen or more comets. Important observations have been made of the sun and of the moon. About 5,000 visitors a year are admitted.

Licorice or Liquorice, lik o-ris, a plant of the pea family. The name in its original Greek form means sweet-root. The licorice plant grows from three to four feet high. It is sparingly branched. Pinnate leaves bear 8 to 12 pairs of leaflets. The flowers are of a violet color. The roots, or else the root-stocks, are the valuable part of the plant. They are long, limber, and slender. At the end of three or four years the crop is ready to dig. The roots may be dried and broken into twigs and sent to market in bundles, or an extract may be obtained from them by boiling, bruising, straining, and evaporating. When evaporated, the juice dries into a brilliant black solid. A stick of pure licorice breaks with a shiny fracture and may be dissolved wholly in water. Ordinarily stick licorice is adulterated heavily with starch.

As a medicine, licorice is considered an excellent remedy for colds. As a matter of fact, its chief service lies in soothing the irritated surface of the bronchial tubes, thus enabling nature to effect a cure. Licorice is used also to perfume the breath. Chaucer's miller "cheweth lycorys to smellen sweete." Licorice is raised very generally in the countries of southern Europe. The dry root is worth from one to possibly eight cents a pound. Two to three cents is regarded a fair price. Spain used to supply the world with licorice, but the center of cultivation has moved eastward. Named in order of date in taking up the industry, the chief licorice-producing countries, together with the annual dry product, are as follows:

In 1906 the importation of licorice into the United States was 751,646 pounds of extract, valued at $90,508, and 106,457,889 pounds of dry root valued at $1,780,485. Aside from the small amount required for medicine, licorice is used chiefly in the preparation of plug tobacco. A wild licorice grows in the eastern part of the United States. The cultivation of field licorice has been tried to some extent in California and in Louisiana, but it is not considered profitable. American labor is high and American farmers do not like to wait three years for a crop.