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Show Page 268 1 sessions only to prepare his debate with Newman. Up to that time, no one in the Church of the Latter-day Saints had done as much as Orson of the genealogy and proxy ordinances of salvation mandated in Joseph Smith's revelations. In the opposite corner of Temple Block another enigmatic little cabin stood, much smaller than the Endowment House. Erected in 1869, the tiny one-room shanty stood very near the spot where Orson had two decades before located Salt Lake City in relation to the rest of the world. This was Orson Pratt's observatory. He had obtained permission to construct the tiny edifice so that regular observations might be made to determine the true time - a very valuable service in the days of pioneer communication. A first-class astronomical clock rested on one table, along with a chronological register, a machine capable of recording time to the hundredths of a second. On another stand, Orson installed his prize English telescope; when a row of slats in the roof opened up, two full transits of the night sky could be observed through its three-inch lens. And in the corner of the room, a squat stone obelisk marked the exact intersection of the Salt Lake Base and Meridian, the points established by Orson Pratt from which the entire Great Basin had been 2 surveyed into sections and townships. The buildings on opposite sides of Temple Block symbolized for Orson the two great forces in his life - his science and his faith in the supreme intelligence revealed by Joseph Smith. In his mind, these buildings served the same purpose, for he needed them both to take his bearings on the cosmos. The heavens possessed him increasingly as he grew older. Part of his interest grew out of natural curiosity, but he also saw in the behavio r 3 of distant worlds and nebulous stars the "grand key" Joseph Smith had so enigmatically spoken of, the pattern which would explain the purpose |
