84 Master Minds of Modern Science 



headache/' yet that penalty never discouraged him, and 

 he read everything that came his way. Also he learned 

 mathematics from his father, who was an expert in this 

 subject. An eclipse of the sun in 1662 interested the boy 

 deeply and turned his thought to the study of the heavens, 

 and in 1665 the appearance of a comet made him keener 

 still. This delicate, sickly lad drew up a catalogue of 

 seventy stars, calculating their ascensions, declinations, 

 etc., for many years in advance; he attempted to deter- 

 mine the mean length of the tropical year and the dis- 

 tance of the earth from the sun. 



In 1669 he sent some of his calculations to the Royal 

 Society, and though he sent the paper unsigned the secre- 

 tary found out who he was and wrote him a charming 

 letter, signing it " your very affectionate friend and real 

 servant." In 1670 his father sent him up to London, and 

 he also visited Cambridge, where he met the great Isaac 

 Newton himself. 



This, then, was the young man who at the age of 

 twenty-nine was appointed first Astronomer Royal at the 

 munificent salary of one hundred pounds a year, and with 

 no provision at all for instruments. As for his observa- 

 tory, as at first built, it cost but five hundred and twenty 

 pounds, yet its designer was Sir Christopher Wren. Its 

 materials came from a gate-house of the Tower of London 

 which had recently been pulled down, and the bricks from 

 old Tilbury Fort. The actual money was obtained from 

 the sale of spoiled gunpowder. It was just a small 

 dwelling-house with an upper room to use as an observa- 

 tory, but Flamsteed's royal patron failed to provide 

 either instruments or an assistant. 



The Royal Society lent Flamsteed a little money, and 

 he was helped also by his friend, Sir Jonas Moore. Then 

 he set to work and built instruments for himself. It must 

 be understood that telescopes in the modern sense of the 

 word did not then exist, and that Flamsteed's principal 



