214 HERSCHEL AND HIS WORK 



The writings of Herschel may be said to be contained 

 in that wonderful repository of science and observation, 

 The Transactions of the Royal Society. He contri- 

 buted sometimes one, sometimes two or three or four 

 papers in a year between 1780 and 1818, except in the 

 years 1813 and 1816. Few scientific writers were so 

 active with their pen. Everard Home, in a different 

 sphere of research, surpassed him in the number of his 

 contributions ; but two thousand quarto pages to say 

 nothing of valuable and instructive diagrams filled 

 with wonderful discoveries, rare or useful observations, 

 noble theories, and lofty imaginings formed a life-work 

 of unusual merit. They were written in a language 

 that became familiar to him in a foreign country only 

 after he passed his twentieth year. Titles and text 

 are not unfrequently somewhat prolix, but what was 

 a peculiarity of the age cannot be attributed as a fault 

 to Herschel. His sister, to whom the world is indebted 

 for the form in which not a few of these papers 

 appeared, carefully preserved seventy-two of her 

 brother's in five volumes, which she transferred to 

 his son's keeping in 1830. Only sixty -nine papers 

 were laid before the Royal Society and one before the 

 Royal Astronomical. What the other contents of her 

 bundle were she has not informed us. 



In the writings of Herschel and his sister there is a 

 singular silence on the affairs of another world than 

 this material universe, in whose vast surroundings we 

 spend our brief earthly life. However, it is not an 

 unbroken silence. His sister repeatedly refers to a 

 future state, and to a home she longed for, a meeting- 

 place with those she loved and worked with on earth. 

 She left England less than two months after her 



