Glass plate photograph Lick Observatory, University of California. Transparencies of the Moon. [Mount Hamilton, California, ca. 1896] Photography Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, The New York Public Library Gift of Prof. Edward S. Holden     (148 k)

The Lick Observatory was founded through the bequest of millionaire and "generous miser" James Lick (1796—1876). Built on Mount Hamilton, in the Diablo Range east of San Jose, it was the first permanently occupied mountaintop observatory in the world. One of the men involved with the project was Edward S. Holden, President of the University of California at Berkeley from 1885 to 1888. Holden presented this and another glass plate "transparency" to the Library, along with a set of the Observatory Atlas of the Moon, containing printed versions of many of the Lick photographs. The Lick Observatory is now administered by the Santa Cruz campus of the University of California, and is open daily for visitors.