

I 



THE SUCCESSORS OF NEWTON IN ASTRONOMY 



HEVELIUS AND HALLEY 



OTRANGELY enough, the decade immediately fol- 

 O lowing Newton was one of comparative barren- 

 ness in scientific progress, the early years of the eigh- 

 teenth century not being as productive of great as- 

 tronomers as the later years of the seventeenth, or, for 

 that matter, as the later years of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury itself. Several of the prominent astronomers of 

 the later seventeenth century lived on into the open- 

 ing years of the following century, however, and the 

 younger generation soon developed a coterie of as- 

 tronomers, among whom Euler, Lagrange, Laplace, 

 and Herschel, as we shall see, were to accomplish great 

 things in this field before the century closed. 



One of the great seventeenth-century astronomers, 

 who died just before the close of the century, was 

 Tines Hevelius (1611-1687), of Dantzig, who ad- 

 vanced astronomy by his accurate description of the 

 face and the spots of the moon. But he is remem- 

 bered also for having retarded progress by his influ- 

 in refusing to use telescopic sights in his observa- 

 . 1'ivtVrrin^ until his death the plain sights long 

 before discarded by most other astronomers. The 



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