40 HKRSCHEL AND HIS WORK 



crack, and broke into two pieces. On lookin 

 Fahrenheit's thermometer, I found it to stand at 11 

 And, in the height of summer that year, " the telescope 

 ran with water all the night/' that is, " the condei 

 moisture on the tube has been running dowi in 

 .streams. The small speculum, which som- ims 



noisture, was never aH'.Th.l in il. tube, 



lut was a liitl.- so in the 20- IV. t. The large eye- 

 ^lasM-s ; m ,l nl.jrrt -Classes of tin- lind-Ts ivi|iiiiv.l 

 \\ iping very often." Such were some of the discom- 

 forts clu rfully undergone by this votary of scinicr in 

 pursuit of truth. 1 



Amid labours so continuous and so heavy it cannot 

 occasion surprise that Caroline sometimes found ivlirf 

 in a fit of grumbling. When her brother was polishing 

 a mirror, "by way of krrj-inij him alive, she was con- 

 stantly obliged to feed him by putting the victuals l.y 

 bits into his mouth. This was once the case when, in 

 order to finish a seven-foot mirror, he had not taken his 

 hands from it for sixteen hours together." 2 The 

 delicate lad, who, by his mother's address, escaped 

 soldiering in 1757, hal ^ro\\ n into a powerful athl< ! 

 in 1772. This sometimes happens. Four years later 

 he tried to improve on Newton's telescope by almost 

 doubling tin- li^ht let fall on tin- mirror at the bottom 

 of the tube. He then experimented with a ten l'< < i 

 reflector, but failed. He repeated the attempt with a 

 twenty-feet in 1784, but again was disappointed 

 was too hastily laid aside." !! succ < 1< d shorth- 

 and found " it to be a very convenient and pleasant as 

 \\vll as useful way of observing " : it inverts the north 



1 DiU. Trans., 1803, pp. 216-19. 



- Lalande told the same story in 1783. Sec Arago. 



