534 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and Uranus. The last telescope of his construction had four feet of 

 aperture, and was thirty-seven feet long. The impure atmosphere of 

 a manufacturing centre like Liverpool prevented the utilization of the 

 whole power of an instrument of such dimensions. Mr. Lassell re- 

 solved to transport it to Malta, where he had already installed, ten 

 years before, a telescope of twenty feet. From 1862 to 1865 the new 

 telescope was constantly turned toward the sky, and employed in scru- 

 tinizing its depths. Mr. Lassell discovered more than 600 new neb- 

 ulae, whose feeble light, under the humid sky of the North, had escaped 

 the investigations of William Herschel and Lord Rosse. Mr. Lassell 

 is now occupied in the publication of the numerous materials gathered 

 during his two sojourns at Malta. 



What an example and what instruction may be found in the long 

 career of William Herschel, who passed half a century in sounding 

 the mysterious depths of the universe ! The son of a poor musician 

 burdened with a numerous family he embraced the paternal pro- 

 fession, and went, when twenty years old, to try his fortune in England. 

 He barely earned a living by giving music-lessons and directing con- 

 certs or oratorios, when he was appointed organist at Halifax, then 

 soon after filled the same office in Bath. He passed his leisure time in 

 studying works on astronomy. As he was not rich enough to pur- 

 chase a telescope, he went to work, and, after a thousand attempts, 

 succeeded in making, in 1774, a five-foot reflector, with which he ob- 

 served Saturn's ring. Encouraged by this first success, the organist 

 of Bath entered upon the construction of mirrors of seven feet, then 

 ten, and twenty feet of focus. He made more than 200 before attain- 

 ing the desired perfection, and the total number of mirrors that he 

 worked upon in succession exceeded 400. In 1781 he had the good 

 fortune to discover the planet Uranus, which extended the boundary of 

 the solar system. He was then forty-three years old. This discovery 

 drew upon him the attention of Europe ; George III. granted him a pen- 

 sion and a dwelling at Slough, near Windsor Castle.. He then com- 

 menced that methodical review of the heavens, by means of which he 

 discovered more than 2,000 nebulas, and suggested so many new views of 

 the universe. The greatest part of his labor was executed with instru- 

 ments of moderate dimensions ; he rarely used the great telescope of 

 forty feet, the mirror of which was easily tarnished by the action of 

 the moisture of the night ; he used it, however, in the discovery of the 

 sixth satellite of Saturn. William Herschel died in 1822 ; the year be- 

 fore his death, at the age of eighty-three, he communicated his last paper 

 to the Astronomical Society of London, which, since its foundation, had 

 chosen him for president. In all his researches he was assisted by his 

 sister Caroline, who had lived with him ever since she was twenty-two 

 years old, and who aided him in his observations as well as in his calcula- 

 tions. In this way he was able to astonish the scientific world by the 

 rapidity with which his publications succeeded each other. Caroline 



