Curiosities of Science. 101 



Kepler, and survived him nearly the same time. We have not 

 learned that the intellectual triumvirate of the age enjoyed 

 any opportunity for mutual congratulation. What a privilege 

 would it have been to have contrasted the aristocratic dignity 

 of Tycho with the reckless ease of Kepler, and the manly and 

 impetuous mien of the Italian sage ! Brewster's Life of Newton. 



A PEASANT ASTRONOMER. 



At about the same time that Goodricke discovered the 

 variation of the remarkable periodical star Algol, or ft Persei, 

 one Palitzch, a farmer of Prolitz, near Dresden, a peasant by 

 station, an astronomer by nature, from his familiar acquaint- 

 ance with the aspect of the heavens, was led to notice, among 

 so many thousand stars, Algol, as distinguished from the rest 

 by its variation, and ascertained its period. The same Palitzch 

 was also the first to re-discover the predicted comet of Halley 

 in 1759, which he saw nearly a month before any of the as- 

 tronomers, who, armed with their telescopes, were anxiously 

 watching its return. These anecdotes carry us back to the era 

 of the Chaldean shepherds. Sir John HerscheVs Outlines. 



SHIRBURN-CASTLE OBSERVATORY. 



Lord Macclesfield, the eminent mathematician, who was 

 twelve years President of the Royal Society, built at his seat, 

 Shirburn Castle in Oxfordshire, an Observatory, about 1739. 

 It stood 100 ya.rds south from the castle-gate, and consisted of 

 a bed-chamber, a room for the transit, and the third for a mural 

 quadrant. In the possession of the Royal Astronomical So- 

 ciety is a curious print representing two of Lord Macclesfield's 

 servants taking observations in the Shirburn observatory ; they 

 are Thomas Phelps, aged 82, who, from being a stable-boy to 

 Lord-Chancellor Macclesfield, rose by his merit and genius to 

 be appointed observer. His companion is John Bartlett, ori- 

 ginally a shepherd, in which station he, by books and observa- 

 tion, acquired such a knowledge in computation, and of the 

 heavenly bodies, as to induce Lord Macclesfield to appoint 

 him assistant-observer in his observatory. Phelps was the 

 person who, on December 23d, 1743, discovered the great 

 comet, and made the first observation of it; an account of 

 which is entered in the Philosophical Transactions, but not the 

 name of the observer. 



LACAILLE'S OBSERVATORY. 



Lacaille, who made more observations than all his contem- 

 poraries put together, and whose researches will have the 

 highest value as long as astronomy is cultivated, had an ob- 

 servatory at the College Mazarin, part of which is now the 

 Palace of the Institute, at Paris. 



