466 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



what he and his father had done at Slough, he continues : " Having so far 

 succeeded to my wish (the places of the objects thus determined proving, 

 on the whole, satisfactory), and having by this practice acquired sufficient 

 mastery of the instrument employed (a reflecting telescope of 14^ inches 

 clear aperture and 20 feet focus on my father's construction), and of the 

 delicate process of polishing the specula ; being, moreover, strongly in- 

 vited by the peculiar interest of the subject, and the wonderful nature 

 of the objects which presented themselves in the course of its prosecution, 

 I resolved to attempt the completion of a survey of the whole surface 

 of the heavens, and, for this purpose, to transport into the other hemi- 

 sphere the same instrument which had been employed in this, so as to 

 give a unity to the results of both portions of the survey, and to render 

 them comparable with each other." 



Herschel sailed from England on November 13, 1833, with his family 

 and instruments ; and on his arrival at the Cape, January 15, 1834, he 

 selected, as the site of his temporary observatory, Feldhausen, situated 

 a little to the southwest of the Royal Observatory of the Cape. In a 

 month his instruments were placed in position and ready for work. 

 After luxuriating for a few nights, with laudable curiosity, on some ex- 

 traordinary objects in the constellation of the Cross and of Argo, he be- 

 gan his regular sweeps of the southern sky on the 5th of March. When 

 he had left the Cape, a granite monument was erected by friends, to 

 commemorate the charming spot, at the base of Table Mountain, where 

 his observatory stood. Few astronomers will have the privilege of see- 

 ing it. But they have the greater privilege of beholding always the 

 nobler monument to the family name of Herschel, in the magnificent 

 quarto volume, of nearly five hundred pages, illustrated with seventeen 

 plates, which bears the august title, " Results of Astronomical Observa- 

 tions made during the years 1834, 5, 6, 7, 8, at the Cape of Good 

 Hope ; being the completion of a telescopic survey of the whole sur- 

 face of the visible heavens, commenced in 1825," and dedicated to the 

 late Hugh, Duke of Northumberland, by whose munificence the work 

 was published. 



A bare enumeration of the subjects of the seven chapters of this 

 volume will give some idea of the variety and severity of the labor 

 crowded into Herschel's few years of residence at the Cape. Chapter 

 I. records that which energized the whole enterprise, namely, the regis- 

 tration of the nebulae and clusters of the southern sky. Of these, 1708 

 are registered, most of them new to astronomy. Others, not wholly 



