HELTER-SKELTER FLIGHT OF THE STARS 319 



astronomy. For the rest of his life in every spare moment he 

 will think of nothing else. He determines to buy a telescope ; 

 it is beyond his means ; he makes one of his own ; then another 

 and another, until he has at last an excellent ten-foot reflector, 

 and the real work of his life is begun. 



His industry must have been something prodigious. By 

 day, in the intervals of teaching, he is grinding lenses for larger 

 and larger telescopes. In the evenings he is conducting concerts 

 and oratorios ; then sweeping the heavens for the rest of the 

 night. He must have been of tough fibre to stand such a strain. 



After five or six years of it his reward comes. He discovers 

 the comet-like star which turns out to be the new planet which 

 they will call Uranus. In a spectacular way it is the biggest 

 thing since the discovery of the telescope itself. Like Byron, 

 he finds himself famous in a night. The Royal Society makes 

 him a Fellow ; the King sends for him. He may now give 

 up his concerts and music classes ; he has a workshop and an 

 observatory of his own, with the princely salary of 200 a year. 

 Astronomy becomes the fashionable fad of the time, and tele- 

 scopes are in demand. He makes them by the score. But 

 soon, from a friendly word, the King realises how absurd it is 

 to have this wonderful man grinding lenses, and he is given 

 money to build a great forty- foot instrument, which is the 

 dearest dream of his days. It is a magnificent affair ; compare 

 it for an instant with the resources of Galileo. His crude tubes 

 would enlarge only thirty-two times, Herschel's several thou- 

 sand six thousand, one may read, but the figure is somewhat 

 misleading. How the noble Florentine would have stared could 

 he have seen it ; would he ever have left off observing if it could 

 have been his ! 



But its creator is worthy of the instrument. What he did 

 with it forms a good share of modern stellar astronomy. He 

 maps and catalogues the stars, the nebulae as well. He dis- 

 covers eight hundred double stars stars which to the eye had 

 seemed single. He passes in review the whole firmament open 

 to his gaze, not a single time but four times, with a minute 

 scrutiny as if he were searching for gold. He counts the number 

 of stars in each of more than three thousand divisions which 

 he makes of the firmament. 



From all this he rises to a yet greater discovery or, if any 

 prefer, demonstration that of the proper or straight-line motion 



