HERSCHEL, JOHN F. W. 



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pletely, and made large additions to it. In 

 1843 he commenced his course of lectures on 

 mineralogy and crystallography, which he 

 maintained till his death. He laid before the 

 Austrian Parliament, about this time, a paper 

 demonstrating so conclusively the advantages 

 of a geological survey, that they were con- 

 vinced, and he was commissioned to organize 

 that important and national work, and to 

 superintend it. The Austrian Geological In- 

 stitute, which had charge of this work, was 

 founded by him in 1849, and he was at its head 

 until October, 1866. He was also the principal 

 founder of the Imperial Geographical Society 

 of Vienna, and of other geographical institu- 

 tions in Hungary, Moravia, and Milan. It was 

 at his urgent request, too, that the voyage of 

 the Austrian frigate Novara round the globe 

 was undertaken, and its valuable scientific 

 results given to the world. Prof. Haidinger 

 contributed many valuable essays, papers, and 

 treatises, to science. Among the most note- 

 worthy of these, we may name: "Manual of 

 Determinative Mineralogy" (1843); "Obser- 

 vations upon the Arrangement of Molecules in 

 Crystals" (1853); "The Minimum Elevation 

 of Storm-Clouds " (1852) ; " The Direction of 

 the Undulations of the Ether in Polarized 

 Light " (1852) ; " The Lines of Interference of 

 Mica" (1854), etc., etc. He also edited from 

 1847 till a short period before his death a pe- 

 riodical entitled Scientific Dissertations, and 

 also the "Proceedings of the Society of Friends 

 of the Natural Sciences at Vienna." " The 

 Geognostic Chart of the Austrian Empire," 

 published under his direction, and, in consider- 

 able part, from his hand, in 1847, is to this 

 day unsurpassed in its kind. 



HERSCHEL, Sir JOHN FREDERICK WILLIAM, 

 Bart., D. C. L., an English astronomer, physi- 

 cist, and author, born at Slough, near Windsor, 

 England, March 7, 1792 ; died at Collingwood, 

 England, May 11, 1871. He was the only son 

 of Sir William Herschel, a celebrated astrono- 

 mer, illustrious for his discoveries in that sci- 

 ence. . The younger Herschel was brought up 

 in the society of people of mature age, and 

 the influence of this training was always evi- 

 dent in his tranquil and sometimes constrained 

 demeanor. Besides his parents, his early cul- 

 ture was, to a great extent, guided by his aunt, 

 Miss Caroline Herschel, the discoverer of five 

 comets, and the author of a "Catalogue of 

 Stars," and by his father's brother, who as- 

 sisted in the observatory. When his education 

 advanced beyond the sphere of home, he was 

 placed at Hitcham, near Maidenhead, under 

 the care of Dr. George Gretton, who was 

 afterward Dean of Hereford. In due course 

 he entered at Eton, and subsequently at Cam- 

 bridge, where his college was St. John's. In 

 1813 he was Senior Wrangler and Smith's 

 Prizeman. In conjunction with Dr. Peacock, 

 afterward the Dean of Ely, he reconstructed 

 Lacroix's treatise " On the Differential Calcu- 

 lus," and published his first work, "A Collec- 



tion of Examples of the Application of the 

 Calculus to Finite Differences." Sir William 

 Herschel, when his son was about thirteen 

 years of age, drew the attention of the world 

 of science to the wonders of the arcana of 

 space, the motion of the binary stars, the ex- 

 istence of other systems of worlds similar to 

 our own, the probable constitution of nebulas, 

 and the vast immensity of the Milky Way. All 

 this sank deep into the mind of the son, and 

 we find him, in 1816, when his father carried 

 the weight of seventy-eight years, examining 

 the double stars for himself, and extending the 

 work which his parent had begun. In this la- 

 bor he associated himself with a young man of 

 similar taste, James South, and in 1824 they 

 reported to the Royal Society the position and 

 apparent distances of 380 double and triple 

 stars, obtained by more than 10,000 measure- 

 ments. This memoir attracted the attention 

 of the French Academy, and they voted it 

 their astronomical prize, and, two years later, 

 the gold inedal of the Royal Astronomical So- 

 ciety was given to the young astronomers. 

 Sir William Herschel died in 1822, and Miss 

 Herschel returned to Hanover, leaving her 

 nephew the possessor of all his father's instru- 

 ments, and of more than his father's energetic 

 and tireless industry. The "Philosophical 

 Transactions" for 1826 contain "An Ac- 

 count of a Series of Observations made in the 

 Summer of 1825, for the Purpose of determin- 

 ing the Difference of the Meridians of the 

 Royal Observatories of Greenwich and Paris." 

 During the years 1825, 1826, and 1827, Her- 

 schel was occupied at Slough with the 20-feet 

 reflector, making observations on the multiple 

 stars, the results of which were published in 

 the "Memoirs" of the Astronomical Society, in 

 four series the first including 381 new double 

 stars; the second, 295 more; the third, 384 

 more ; and the fourth, 1,236 double stars, the 

 greater part of which had not been previously 

 described. These researches were continued, 

 almost without interruption, until 1832 ; when 

 a fifth series of observations were published 

 of 2,007 double stars, of which 1,304 had not 

 been previously observed; and in the year fol- 

 lowing a sixth series was produced. In 1833 

 we find in the "Philosophical Transactions" 

 a very important communication, " Observa- 

 tions of Nebuke and Clusters of Stars," made 

 with a 20-feet reflector. Some 2,000 of these 

 mysterious masses were subjected to the most 

 careful examination, and much of their physi- 

 cal construction was ascertained and described. 

 The mere film in space was traced toward its 

 segregation into discrete stars, and those stars 

 themselves were noted in a yet denser state of 

 segregation, gathering round a central nucleus. 

 During this period, Herschel made many con- 

 tributions to the literature of science. An 

 article from'his pen " On Physical Astronomy " 

 appeared in the Encyclopedia Metropolitana 

 in 1823. In 1832 a " Treatise on Astronomy" 

 appeared in " The Cabinet Cyclopaedia," which 



