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CHAPTER III
1855-1857
EXTRACTS FROM DIARY--RACHEL--EMERSON--A HARD WINTER
"Jan. 1, 1855. I put some wires into my little transit this morning. I
dreaded it so much, when I found yesterday that it must be done, that it
disturbed my sleep. It was much easier than I expected. I took out the
little collimating screws first, then I drew out the tube, and in that I
found a brass plate screwed on the diaphragm which contained the lines.
I was at first a little puzzled to know which screws held this diaphragm
in its place, and, as I was very anxious not to unscrew the wrong ones,
I took time to consider and found I need turn only two. Then out slipped
the little plate with its three wires where five should have been, two
having been broken. As I did not know how to manage a spider's web, I
took the hairs from my own head, taking care to pick out white ones
because I have no black ones to spare. I put in the two, after first
stretching them over pasteboard, by sticking them with sealing-wax
dissolved in alcohol into the little grooved lines which I found. When I
had, with great labor, adjusted these, as I thought, firmly, I perceived
that some of the wax was on the hairs and would make them yet coarser,
and they were already too coarse; so I washed my little camel's-hair
brush which I had been using, and began to wash them with clear alcohol.
Almost at once I washed out another wire and soon another and another.
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