Letter from James Veitch. 101 



LETTER FEOM JAMES VEITCH TO MRS. SOMERVILLE. 



INCHBONNT, 12th October, 1836. 

 DEAR MADAM, 



I saw in the Quarterly review for December 

 1835 page 216 that the comet 1682 was discovered by a 

 Peasent, George Palitzch residing in the neighbourhood 

 of Dresden on the 25th of December 1758 with a small 

 Telescope. But no mention is made of the Peasent at 

 Inchbonny who first discovered the beautiful comet 1811. 

 You will remember when Dr. Wollaston was at Inch- 

 bonny I put a difficult question to him that I could not 

 solve about the focal distance of optic glasses when the 

 Dr. got into a passion and said : Had he problems in his 

 pocket ready to pull out in every occasion ? and with an 

 angry look at me said, You pretend to be the first that 

 discovered the comet altho' it has been looked for by 

 men of science for some time back. Now I never heard 

 of such a thing and you will perhaps know something 

 about it as the Dr. would not be mistaken. After we 

 got acquainted, the Dr. was a warm friend of mine and 

 I have often regretted that I had not improved the 

 opportunity I had when he was here on many things 

 he was master off. What ever others had known or 

 expected I knew nothing about, But I know this, that on 

 the 27th of August 1811 I first saw it in the NNW. 

 part of the Heavens nigh the star marked 26 on the 

 shoulder of the little Lion and continued treacing its 

 path among the fixed stars untill it dissapeared and it 

 was generally admitted that I had discovered it four 

 days before any other person in Britain. However 

 Mr. Thomas Dick on the Diffusion of Knowledge page 



