Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 May 1894 — To See Men on Mars. [ARTICLE]

To See Men on Mars.

“For $50,000 I will undertake to construct a telescope with an objective ten feet in diameter, better Id every respect in proportion than the forty-incn $500,000 Yerkes telescope, and to finish it sooner. For a proportionately larger turn I will undertake to construct a telescope with an objective 100 feet in diameter, more efficient in proportion for every scientific purpose than the Lick or Yerkes telescope. There is no reason in telescopic science why we should not see the Inhabitants of Mara and. see to pick up a pin on the moon.” This is the bold but intelligent utterance of Louis Gathman, an amateur optician, astronomer, scientist and inventor of this city. Mr. Gathman’s scientific career has been something like that of Edison. That is, he has been dependent on his own resources and has been a» all around inventor. But he has taken the greatest interest of all in optics and astronomy. He has had a telescope and has been a student of the heavens for fifteen years. Ten years ago he erected an observatory in connection with his residence and placed in its dome a seven-inch telescope, with which he amuses himself at spare momenta. He makes no pretentions however, to a scientific knowledge of astronomy. —[Chicago Tribune.