Bruce Telescope.

The Bruce photographic telescope, which is to be transferred to the station at Arequipa, Peru, is nearly ready for shipment, and will probably start on its journey Saturday, December 14. The heavy metal castings and machinery, tubes, etc., will be sent to New York by the Metropolitan steamer. The lenses, consisting of four lenses and two prisms each 24 inches in diameter, will be shipped to New York by rail. As the greatest care has to be used in moving these lenses, even though they are most securely packed and protected, Mr. Willard P. Gerrish will accompany them to New York and see them put safely into the steamer's strongroom, where they will remain until the steamer is met at Mollendo, Peru. The telescope will be shipped on the "Condor" of the Merchants Line around South America through the Straits of Magellan to Peru. It is sent this roundabout way to avoid the handling of the lenses by inexperienced hands at the Isthmus of Panama. From Mollendo the instrument will be taken by rail about 75 miles inland to Arequipa. The chief difficulty will be met there in transferring the heavy machinery to the observatory about three miles away, as the roads are very poor and the means of transportation even worse.

The building which is to receive the telescope will be of stout stone walls, without windows, to protect the instrument against stray missiles in times of insurrection. The dome will be a light skeleton covered with canvas. The absence of frost and snow renders this possible.

The Telescope will be used chiefly in making systematic photograph charts of the sky. It is the largest photographic telescope that has ever been constructed, and the work done with it will be most important.

The latest mail advice from Arequipa says that the new star discovered in the constellation Carina last spring is fading away.