SIR JOHN FREDERICK WILLIAM HERSCHEL. 113 



mittecl to liis sou as a hereditary possession, with which the name of 

 Herschel must be associated for all ages. He has subjected the whole 

 sphere of the heavens within his observation to a repeated and systematic 

 scrutiny. Ilehasdetermined the position and described the character of 

 the most remarkable of the nebuhe. He has observed and registered many 

 thousand distances and angles of position of double stars, and has shown, 

 from comparison of his own with other observations, that many of them 

 form systems whose variations of position are subject to invariable laws. 

 He has succeeded, by a happ}" combination of graphical construction 

 with numerical calculations, in determining the relative elements of the 

 orbjits which sou^e of them describe round each other, and in forming 

 tables of their motions ; and he has thus demonstrated that the laws of 

 gravitation, which are exhibited, as it were, in miniature in our own 

 planetary system, prevail also in the most distant regions of space — a 

 memorable conclusion, justly entitled, by the generality of its character, 

 to be considered as forming an epoch in the history of astronomy, and 

 presenting one of the most magnificent examples of the simplicity and 

 universality of those fundamental laws of nature by which their great 

 Author has shown that he is the same to day and forever, here and 

 everywhere.''' 



It is impossible to give any analysis of the results of the numerous 

 researches which occupied the time of Sir John Herschel at the various 

 periods of his life. From a rough and evidently incomplete list of his 

 papers it would appear that out of seventy, twenty-eight are on astronom- 

 ical subjects, thirteen on optics, ten on pure mathematics, eight on 

 geology, and eleven on miscellaneous science. 



There are, however, two of his astronomical works to which we may 

 fittingly refer here, since they furnish a key which unlocks much of Sir 

 John's personal history. These are, first, his " Catalogue of nebuhe 

 and clusters," published in the Philosophical Transactions for the year 

 1833, for which the gold medals of the Eoyal Society and the Astro- 

 nomical Society were awarded ; and, second, " liesults deduced from 

 observations made at the Cape of Good Hoj)e." For this latter work he 

 received the Copley medal for the second time from the Royal Society, 

 and an honorary testimonial from the Astronomical Society. 



The interest which Sir John Herschel always exhibited in the minute 

 details of nebulae and double stars must be considered as the result of his 

 association with his illustrious father. M. Arago, in his admirable and 

 exhaustive biographical notice of Sir William Herschel, translated from 

 the French, and published recently in the report of the Smithsonian 

 Institution, refers gracefully to this fact. Sir John's early familiarity 

 with his father's instruments, in familiarity with which he may be said to 

 have grown up, and with their necessar}" use in making observations, 

 had its influence doubtless in the same direction. Hence, probably, the 

 reason why so long a period of his observing time was devoted to this 



section of astronomical research. One of his first communications to the 



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