135 YEARS AGO: News of the recent arrival from Paris of a lense for the object glass of the 40-inch telescope that is to be made by the Clarks of Cambridgeport, for the University of Southern California, has contracted considerable attention. A great deal of light may be thrown upon some of the vexed questions concerning Mars, Venus, and the other planets by the new telescope. There are very puzzling appearances on their surfaces, some of which seem to demand for their solution but a comparatively slight increase of telescopic power beyond our present limit. But, as to inhabitants of other planets, the new telescope will leave us as much in the dark so far as the possibility of seeing them or their architectural monuments is concerned, as we have ever been. November 14, 1890…