XV 



SIR WILLIAM HERSCHEL 



I 738- I 822 



Sir William Herschel was horn in Hanover, Germany, November 

 15, 1738, the son of a bandmaster. At an early age he was compelled 

 to earn his ozim living by playing in the band of the Hanoverian 

 Guards. In 1766, after some years of financial straits, he found 

 work as an organist at Bath. Studying languages and ^nathematics 

 without assistance from tutors, he became interested in "the music of 

 the spheres" which developed into a scientific attitude in astronofny. 

 He managed, in spite of his poverty, to construct specula for a tele- 

 scope and in 1/81, with one of his own instruments, he discovered the 

 planet Uranus, one of the most romantic discoveries in the history of 

 science. Among his other discoveries were two of the satellites of 

 Uranus, two more of Saturn, and the fact that the moon was with- 

 out atmosphere; he also described many of the binary stars, discov- 

 ered many nebulous stars (which prepared the way for the nebular 

 theory of the universe), and made the inference from the movements 

 of the stars that the whole solar system was rushing towards the con- 

 stellation of Hercules. After his death, August 25, 1822, his son, 

 Sir John Herschel, continued his work in astronomy. 



THE DISCOVERY OF URANUS* 

 ACCOUNT OF A COMET 



On 

 evening 



Tuesday, the 13th of March, 1781, between 10 and 11 in the 

 g, while examining the small stars in the neighborhood of H 



* This excerpt and the one following are from the report by Herschel in the 

 Transactions of the Royal Society of London; the third is an abstract from 

 the same report, the conclusion, however, being by Herschel. 



109 



