WOMEN IN ASTRONOMY 183 



an astronomer of distinction, and is known, in the annals 

 of astronomy, as the discoverer of no fewer than eight 

 comets. Great, however, as was her skill as an observer 

 and computer, it was as her brother's assistant that she is 

 entitled to the most distinction. Her affection for him was 

 as unbounded as her devotion to his life work was abiding 

 and productive of great results. For fifty years, after 

 joining him in England they both had been born and bred 

 in Hanover she was ever at his side, to assist him in his 

 labors and to cheer him by her words of counsel and en- 

 couragement. She helped him to grind and polish the mir- 

 rors that were used in his epoch-making reflectors. This 

 was a most arduous task; for, at that time, there was no 

 machinery sufficiently exact for grinding specula, and, as a 

 consequence, the work had all to be done by hand. So 

 interested was the great astronomer in his work, when 

 polishing his larger specula, that he forgot all about the 

 passage of time, and on these occasions his sister was con- 

 stantly obliged, as she herself informs us, "to feed him 

 by putting the victuals by bits into his mouth by way of 

 keeping him alive. ' ' When finishing his seven- foot reflector 

 he was on one occasion found so intent on his work that 

 "he had not taken his hands from it for sixteen hours 

 together. " 



In our day, when all kinds of astronomical apparatus 

 are made by machinery, it is difficult for us to realize what 

 stupendous labor was required to produce those giant tele- 

 scopes with which the Herschels made their great discov- 

 eries and by which they, at the same time, revolutionized 

 the science of the stars. For they had not only to design 

 and make the specula, but also the mountings of the mir- 

 rors as well. And, in order to obtain the money required 

 for material and workmen, they were obliged to make tele- 

 scopes for sale. This meant an immense loss of precious 

 time that would otherwise have been devoted to the study 

 of the heavens. 



