Oct. 9, 1885.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE 



butli referred, quite justly, to Sir Wm. Herscliel, and the 

 reader is further informed that according to the views 

 accepted by astronomers of our time the system of stars 

 really has the figure assigned to it by the theory so fully 

 and so frequently described and illustrated. 



Yet, surprising as it may seem, the theory referred to 

 is one which Sir William Herschel himself has 

 distinctly rejected, as not in accordance with the 

 evidence he obtained during the progress of his re- 

 searches. This " generally accepted theory " with which 

 every reader of even the most elementary treatises on 

 astronomy is familiar, is one which no astronomer who 

 has read Sir William Herschel's works through can 

 possibly accept as the true theory of the sidereal system. 

 I know nothing which in a more marked manner illus- 

 trates the careless way in which our astronomical text- 

 books are prepared than this, — that a theory which its 

 own deviser rejected as unsound, has been presented over 

 and over again as embodying nearly all that is known 

 about the general structure of the sidereal heavens. One 

 writer has borrowed the theory from another — neither 

 inquiring into its real merits nor being at the pains to 

 study the papers of the great astronomer who first pro- 

 pounded it ; until at length it has come to pass that the 

 few who have ventured to challenge the theory have 

 been regarded as little less rash than the paradoxists who 

 are always overthrowing the theory of gravitation. 



I REMEMBER Well tho awe-struck — almost horror-.struok 

 — looks with which many of the Fellows of that very 

 Society which might be expected to know best what 

 Herschel taught, regarded me when I said that a greater 

 astronomer than the propounder of the theory had over- 

 thrown it. " Sir Wm. Herschel put forvyard this 

 theory of the stars," I remarked, " but it was attacked 

 and overthrown more than a quarter of a century later 

 by an astronomer of greater experience, by an observer 

 far more skilful, by a theoriser at once more daring and 

 more cautious. This man, the greatest observational 

 astronomer that has ever lived, and excepting Newton 

 himself, the astronomer who has most profoundly affected 

 the views of men respecting the celestial depths, has pro- 

 nounced that the theory of the star-system which appears 

 in almost all the astronomical text-books of our day is not 

 a sound one, because not based on trustworthy hypotheses. 

 The astronomer who thus proved that Sir Wm. Herschel 

 had been wrong was Sir Wm. Herschel himself. The 

 appeal is from Sir Wm. Herschel in 1785, the most skilful 

 and laborious observer of his day, to Sir Wm. Herschel a 

 quarter of a century later, compared with whom, the 

 Herschel of 1785, groat as he was, was yet but a beginner." 

 Many, if not most of those to whom I addressed these 

 remarks, considered (I know well) that either I was mis- 

 taken or else that I was drawing somewhat largely on my 

 imagination. 



I WAS not aware when I thus addressed the Royal 

 " ;al Society that the German astronomer Wm. 



g the e 



. H.T.schri ,lin 



of t 



spri 



of the result to which those labours had led : — " Nous 

 parvenons done au r^sultat peut-etre inattendu mais 

 incontestable, que le systeme de Herschtl, enonce en 1785 

 sur V arrangement de la Voie Lactee, s'ecroule de toutes 

 parts, d'apres les recherches ulterieures de Vauteur ; et que 

 Herschel lui-meme I'a entiirement ahandonni. 



It is strange that the country in which the elder 

 Herschel received his scientific training should know so 

 little of his works. We have to turn to German literature 

 to obtain a satisfactory, thoughnot quite cnnijilcti' npf-mnit 

 of Sir Wm. Herschel's researches. Hi- • ii i - rly 

 papers are written indeed in our langui'i • .li'> 



would read them must search through 1 1 ■ , . 1 1 , , i n i 1 1 1 1 i y - 

 seven of the lliirtv-nine volumes of the - i'liii-.soiihic'Ml 

 Tr,inis:utinii,," |,ul.lished between the years 1760 and 

 1818. Kn-liii^i liiis not done what Wilhelm Struve 

 urged lier to <l(i. She has not yet honoured herself by 

 " honouring the memory of her greatest astronomer," so 

 far as to publish " at least a complete and systematic 

 edition of his works."* Nor again has the position 

 which the work of the younger Herschel bears with 

 respect to the labours of the father been adequately 

 presented in any English treatise on astronomy, the 

 subject being one which would naturally not receive at 

 his own hands — in his fine " Outlines of Astronomy " — 

 either exhaustive or sufficiently appreciative treatment. 



A CORRESPONDENT sends us the following amusing letter 

 from the Berhy Daily Telegraph, together with an article 

 about the Derby ghosts from the same paper, — asking if 

 we can wonder there are ghosts at Derby : — 



SiK,--A correspondent in your Tuesday niglit's issue presents ns 

 with a sample of Mr. Proctor's statements, some of which are 

 taught in our schools to the rising generation. Just imagine the 

 editor of Knowledge being lauded and applauded for such burn- 

 ing imaginative utterances as the following: — That the earth, sun, 

 and moon are planets, requiring millions of years' process to advance 

 to the stage he states the moon to be in, " decrepid." Will the 

 reader just compare this with the Mosaic account found in Genesis, 

 that not quite sLx thousand years ago God created on the fourth 

 day two great lights, sun and moon, to rule day and night, also for 

 signs and for seasons. Thus the moon cannot be the sun's senior 

 by twelve hours. Yet we are expected to believe it millions of 

 years. I respect my Bible too much for that, and have learned to 

 value its statements as true. Mr. Proctor also pretends to describe 

 the roarings of a cyclone in the sun, also to give its velocity ai 



miles per second. Headers, think of these st 

 these things can be determined on a body 

 miles distant, a distance which no human e 

 most powerful aid. If the sun was double i1 

 sand times the brilliancy they say it is, oni 



It of o 



t of n 



its, and ask how 

 letT-five millions of 

 can reach witli the 

 iize and of ten thou- 

 uillion miles would 



!•:. T, Tatlok. 



Although of course such letters reflect discredit where 

 they appear, I fancy Derby is well on a level with the 

 best towns in England for general intelligence and educa- 

 tion. My audiences there, both when I lectured recently, 

 and when I lectured for the Gilchrist Fund, were among 

 the best I have addressed. 



•essfal hits 

 ii.crease of 



tion of the ncu 

 be expected, 

 greater on tho 1 

 work, being fur 

 that tlie incr<-:u 

 all, felt in the 

 considerably roi 



s made' abundantly evident to the 



