learn from him what may be useful to 

 myself, than he to learn anything from 

 me 1 ." A brief correspondence followed 

 between the two astronomers, but they 

 probably met occasionally at the Royal 

 Society's rooms, the table of the Royal 

 Society Club, or other meeting places in 

 London. 



The search for further personal records 

 of the Rector of Thornhill has not been 

 successful. His life in the Yorkshire 

 parish was doubtless quiet and uneventful, 

 full of pastoral duty, well discharged, but 

 with leisure for the prosecution of scien- 

 tific work. This work was undertaken 

 for its own sake, and much of it was pro- 

 bably never published, though it was 



1 Scientific Papers of Sir IVilliam Herschel, vol. I, 

 pp. xxxi, xxxii. The two astronomers never met 

 nor exchanged letters before I2th April 1781, on 

 which date Michell addressed a letter to Herschel 

 dealing with mirrors, and the relative merits of dif- 

 ferent types for large and small apertures. Op. clt. 

 p. xxxii. It is interesting to know, from the testi- 

 mony of Herschel himself, that after Michell's death, 

 he purchased his large telescope. See postca y p. 96. 



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