THE 



AMERICAN 



JOURNAL OF SCIENCE AND AETS 



[SECOND SERIES.] 



Art. XXII. — A brief Notice of the Life, Researches, and Dis- 

 coveries of Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel; by Sir J. F. W. 

 Herschel.* 



* riedrich Wilhelm Bessel was born at Mmden, July 22, 

 17 §4. His father held an office of local administration under 

 the Prussian government (Justiz-Rath). His mother was the 

 "hter of a clergyman, Schrader by name, at Rehme. Being 

 one of a family of nine children, his education, though not neg- 

 lected, was in no respect calculated to fit him for his future dis- 

 tinguished career. It is said that he showed an early disinclina- 

 tion for the elements of classical literature ; most probably from 

 tn e repulsive form in which they are usually administered to 

 children. Be that as it may, he manifested a decided preference 

 for, and early expertness in, arithmetic ; which his father per- 

 ceiv mg, placed him, at the age of fifteen, as an apprenticed clerk 

 ln a considerable commercial house at Bremen, (Kuhlenkamp 

 ^d Sons. ) 



A boyish story is told of his grinding a glass with emery m a 

 ^cer, and remarking, with delight, that it in some degree con- 

 centrated the rays of the sun ; perhaps in rude imitation of some 

 ^ocess he had read of, or been told. A more decidedly charac- 

 tenst ic anecdote is recorded, of his having in his thirteenth year, 

 remarked, while comparing the constellations in the heavens with 

 the tr representation on a planisphere, that * Lym, marked as one 



a * Exacted from the Annual Report of the Royal Astronomical Society, Lo»- 

 °"> 1847. 



S ^ond S ERIE5 , Vol. IV, No. la— Not., 1847. 39 



