120 HERSCHEL AND HIS WORK 



such as butchers use for hanging their joints upon, and 

 having to run in the dark on ground covered a foot 

 deep with melting snow, I fell on one of these hooks, 

 which entered my right leg above the knee. My 

 brother's call, ' Make haste ! ' I could only answer by 

 a pitiful cry, ' I am hooked ! ' He and the work- 

 men were instantly with me, but they could not lift 

 me without leaving two ounces of my flesh behind. 

 . . . At the end of six weeks I began to have some 

 fears about my poor limb. ... I had, however, the 

 comfort to know that my brother was no loser through 

 this accident, for the remainder of the night was 

 cloudy." The compensation she urges, in extenuation 

 of the accident, by its drollery almost makes us forget 

 its gravity. Once also when her " brother was elevated 

 fifteen feet or more on a temporary cross-beam instead 

 of a safe gallery," a very high wind so shook the 

 apparatus that " he had hardly touched the ground 

 before the whole of it came down." If accidents so 

 serious happened before the heavier and more cumbrous 

 machinery of the 40-feet telescope was erected, we 

 may be certain that Herschel's mechanical skill did not 

 avail to prevent them in the working of the great 

 telescope. 



If Herschel had done nothing more for science than 

 build this great telescope he would have amply earned 

 the high eulogium graven on his tombstone at Upton, 

 " The barriers of the heavens he broke through, penetrat- 

 ing as well as exploring their more remote spaces." 

 Nothing to compare with it had been seen before. It 

 was a wonder that the gravest man of science regarded 

 with deepest admiration, and children at school looked 

 on with awe in the pictures of it seen on the pages of 



