HIS FORTY-—FOOT TELESCOPE. 265 
and that great discoveries would honour his career also. 
No prediction of the illustrious aimenel has been more 
completely verified. 
The English journals gave an account of the means 
adopted by the family of William Herschel, for preserv- 
ing the remains of the great telescope of thirty-nine 
English feet (twelve metres) constructed by that cele- 
brated astronomer. 
The metal tube of the instrument carrying at one end 
the recently cleaned mirror of four feet ten inches in diam- 
eter, has been placed horizontally in the meridian line, 
on solid piers of masonry, in the midst of the circle, where 
formerly stood the mechanism requisite for manceuvring 
the telescope. The first of January 1840, Sir John Her- 
schel, his wife, their children, seven in number, and some 
old family servants, assembled at Slough. Exactly at 
noon, the party walked several times in procession round 
the instrument; they then entered the tube of the tele- 
scope, seated themselves on benches that had been pre- 
pared for the purpose, and sung a requiem, with English 
words composed by Sir John Herschel himself. After 
their exit, the illustrious family ranged themselves around 
the great tube, the opening of which was then hermeti- 
cally sealed. The day concluded with a party of intimate 
friends. 
I know not whether those persons who will only appre- 
ciate things from the peculiar point of view from which 
they have been accustomed to look, may think there was 
something strange in several of the details of the ceremony 
that I have just described. I affirm at least that the 
whole world will applaud the pious feeling which actuated 
Sir John Herschel; and that all the friends of science 
will thank him for having consecrated the humble garden 
12 
