Notes:
Notes:
The Cleveland firm of Warner and Swasey was chosen to build the telescope and its mount. Union Ironworks of San Francisco received the contract for the huge dome. The exacting work of shaping precise lenses from raw glass was entrusted to the optical firm of Alvan Clark and Sons of Boston. The only contract awarded to a European firm went to Charles Feil in Paris for producing glass blanks of high optical quality--and of a size never before attempted. Their production would cause years of delay in the completion of the telescope, and prove the near undoing of the House of Feil." "The plan for the Main Building called for two domes, the larger of which would house the Great Refractor, connected by a long hallway flanked by offices, laboratories, and a library. First, the smaller dome began to rise on its cylindrical tower of bricks. By 1881, the small dome was completed and a 12-inch telescope installed. The 12-inch, purchased secondhand from Alvan Clark's workshop, began its nearly century-long career that same year, recording a transit of Mercury which launched scientific research on Mt. Hamilton seven years before the Great Refractor would see first light."