380 WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



of mathematics and of methods of calculation, which to 

 those unlearned seem mysteries, to be able to commit to 

 writing his researches. She became his assistant in the 

 workshop ; she helped him to grind and polish his mirrors ; 

 she stood beside his telescope in the nights of midwinter, 

 to write down his observations when the very ink was 

 frozen in the bottle. She kept him alive by her care; 

 thinking nothing of herself, she lived for him. She loved 

 him and believed in him, and helped him with all her heart 

 and with all her strength. She might have become a dis- 

 tinguished woman on her own account, for with the seven- 

 foot Newtonian sweeper given her by her brother she dis- 

 covered eight comets first and last. But the pleasure of 

 seeking and finding for herself was scarcely tested. She 

 1 minded the heavens ' for her brother ; she worked for him, 

 not for herself, and the unconscious self-denial with which 

 she gave up 'her own pleasure in the use of her sweeper' 

 is not the least beautiful picture in her life." 1 



While recounting the achievements of women who di- 

 rectly or indirectly contributed to our knowledge of the 

 earth and what it contains we cannot forget what the 

 world owes to the gracious and glorious Isabella of Castile. 

 For it is to her probably as much as to Columbus that a 

 new continent was discovered at the close of the fifteenth 

 century. For, while the doctors of Salamanca most of 

 whom were what Galileo called ' ' paper philosophers, ' ' men 

 who fancied that a correct knowledge of the physical uni- 

 verse was to be obtained by a collation of ancient texts 

 were denouncing the great navigator as an idle dreamer, 

 and quoting the ill-founded notions of Pliny and Aristotle 

 to prove the impossibility of his carrying out his project, 

 Isabella was quietly revolving in her own mind the reasons 

 which Columbus had adduced in favor of his great enter- 

 prise. Having satisfied herself that his views were suffi- 



i Memoir and Correspondence of Caroline Herschel, London, 1879, 

 pp. vi and vii, by Mrs. John Herschel. Cf. Chap. IV of this Vol. 



