VALUE OF THE GREAT TKLESCOPE 121 



books they read. But the npirit of a 

 rivalry, \. awoke in many bosoms, did more for 



agronomy than its b<. It was the 



.n-i: .strumenU of the same kind, as grand 



or even grander. Some men of science, 

 waspishl} d perhaps, denounced the great 



telescope aa of no use. B< tingland and on 



the Continent this waa said, and most unfairly, aa 



one who reads Uerschcrs papers may discover 

 He has frankly and fully explained in 

 his writings * why he preferred to use other and smaller 

 telescopes, and perhaps to use them oftener, In. 1 

 love for and his pril- in this work of his hands is ever 

 aii'l again coming t< >nt. One instance alone 



deserves to be quoted as a specimen: "I saw tin- 

 fourth satellite and the ring of Saturn in the 40-feet 

 speculum without an eye-glass." * 



But it waa seldom that astronomers on the Con- 



t followed the example of William Herschel or 

 gave themselves the trouble he took. Some of < 

 iii. < M" Professor Ainici, an artist and a man of 



of the first rank/' his son, Sir John Her- 

 schel, writes : " He is the only man who has, since 



ither, bestowed great pains on the construction of 

 specula, and his 10-foot telescopes with TJ inch mirrors 

 are of very extraordinary perfection." Ti.:- u i- 



at the tiin* it was written, two years after his 



1 1 did not remain true, for Lord Kosse's 



great 6-feet mirror and 56-feet tube had still to 



come. And like Herschel, Lord Rosse waa his own 



workman. When visiting him at Birr Castle in 1862, 



> Fkif. Trant., 1815. p. 295. 



* Pkii. Tra**., 1791, p. 76 (October 10). 



