Smithsonian to Get Dome

SHATTUCK OBSERVATORY'S log-year-old dome will go to the Smithsonian Institution next spring to become the permanent central exhibit of the Hall of Physics and Astronomy in the new Museum of the History of Technology. An expert from the famed Washington museum, poking around New England in search of antique scientific instruments early last year, discovered the 2,800-pound wooden dome and asked that the College donate it to the Smithsonian. It is a remarkable structure, built by a Vermont carpenter more than a century ago, and its unusual method of rotation relies on the ball-bearing action of six pre-Civil War cannon balls.

In the Museum the dome will serve as housing for a number of large antique astronomical instruments which the Smithsonian has acquired. Being built into the ceiling as is now planned, it will necessarily remain stationary, but a replica of the track on which the unique dome runs will be constructed so the cannon balls and mechanism can be plainly visible.

Shattuck's dome cannot be removed from the observatory until a replacement is built, and that means waiting until the return of warm weather late next spring. The new structure will be of galvanized steel and will make use of electrical power for rotation. However, Prof. Richard H. Goddard '20, director of the observatory, doesn't think that even with the motors driving it the new dome will move a whole lot faster than is possible with the original builder's ingenious method using cannon balls. "Now, with two men," he claims, "once you overcome the friction, you can get her going pretty fast."

Shattuck Observatory has been a Dartmouth landmark since 1854, and now achieves some national renown through the transfer of its antique dome to the Smithsonian Institution.