OF ARTS AND SCIENCES : JUNE 4, 1872. 461 



one of the editors of the Botanische Zeitung ; but the editorial labor 

 must have devolved mainly upon Schlechtendal and his successor, 

 although occasional articles from Mohl's pen appeared as late as 

 the year 1871. During that year his health became seriously im- 

 paired; yet, as the new year advanced, apprehension disappeared. 

 Upon Easter Monday he was apparently well, and so retired to nightly 

 rest : in the morning he was found to have died in sleep. 



John F. W. Herschel was born on March 7, 1792, and died on 

 May 11, 1871, having nearly approached the advanced age of four- 

 score of years. If there is any single spot on earth more memorable 

 than all others in the history of astronomy, it is the observatory of 

 William Herschel, the father, at Slough. Discoveries more and greater 

 than have ever been made elsewhere have given to this little village a 

 fame which will keep alive that of Windsor Castle, as the king, George 

 III., wisely calculated when he placed the astronomer near him with a 

 pension. Of this genius of the observatory, educated, like all of his 

 nine brothers and sisters, to be a musician, it was said that he " had 

 reached the middle of his course before his career of discovery began, 

 and it was in the autumn and winter of his days that he reaped the full 

 harvest of his glory." Here, at Slough, the father incessantly watched 

 the stars for forty years, with a natural vision above that of ordinary 

 mortals, assisted by optical contrivances of his own invention, which are 

 scarcely surpassed by those of the generations which have entered into 

 his labors. Here, also, was the home of Caroline L. Herschel, herself no 

 ordinary astronomer, who left the world of science in doubt which most 

 to admire, " the intellectual power of the brother, or the unconquerable 

 industry of the sister." From this spot William Herschel sent to the 

 Royal Society, in rapid succession, sixty-seven memoirs, richly freighted 

 with his own glorious discoveries, which were the safe ballast by which 

 he kept his mind from growing giddy with his bold speculations on the 

 structure of the universal heavens. On this spot were discovered the 

 satellites of the new planet, Uranus, and two additional satellites of the 

 old planet, Saturn ; on this spot was showered for the first time, in 

 visible forms, the light of hundreds of nebulas, and here was first dis- 

 sected the blended lustre of more than five hundred double stars. Here 

 were garnered up the proofs that the sun was not a fixed point about 

 which the planets revolved, but that it was sent, in their company, on 

 a mission of its own from star to star and from constellation to constel- 



