308 Life, Researches, and Discoveries of F. W. Bessel 



1807, the investigation of whose elements, taking into account 

 its perturbations, was published in 1810, and gained him the prize 

 founded by Laiande, from the Institute of Paris. 



In 1810, he removed from Lilienthal to Konigsberg, being ap- 

 pointed to the direction of the observatory about to be established 

 there by the King of Prussia, and whose construction and pro- 

 vision with instruments he was called on to superintend. This 



observatory will ever remain a monument to his glory, no less 



than to the munificence of the sovereign, who, amidst the alarms 

 of war and the desolation of his country, still mindful of science, 

 ordained its institution. The building was completed and the 

 observations commenced in IS 13, from which time to the con- 

 clusion of his life, an uninterrupted series of the most valuable 

 and important observations continued to emanate from it. Soon 

 after his appointment to this situation, (in which, besides the du- 

 ties of an observer, he had also those of a professor in Konigsberg 

 University to fulfill, by giving a course of lectures on astronomy 

 and mathematics,) he married the daughter of Professor Hagen, 

 by whom he had one son and two daughters. The death of the 

 former, however, in 1841, a fine and talented young man, who 

 already, at an early age, gave the promise of eminent distinction 

 in astronomy, proved to him a most severe trial ; which, however, 

 he bore with resignation, taking refuge from his grief in increased 

 exertions. These brought on, or at least exasperated, an internal 

 complaint, arising, in the opinion of his physicians, afterwards 

 verified on actual examination, from the abnormal and fungous 

 growth of some intestinal organ, under which, after much pro- 

 tracted suffering, he at length succumbed, and expired on the /tn 

 of March, 1846, in the 62d year of his age. . 



An extensive and minute account of the labors of this illus- 

 trious astronomer cannot be expected in a notice of this nature : 

 all that can be done is to touch, and that briefly, on some of the 

 principal among them. 



Of his early and successful devotion to the improvement of our 

 knowledge of comets, something has been already said. l jjj 

 ever continued a favorite subject with him ; and in 1835, he na^ 

 the great satisfaction to observe, with all the means which mo 

 ern instruments afford, the wonderful phenomena of H al1 ^ 

 comet, the reductions of whose early observations (in prepara i 

 for this return of it to its perihelion) had signalized his firs £ ell jc ^ 

 into his astronomical career. His observations of its pny^ ^ 

 appearance previous to its perihelion passage, and especia y 

 the apparent oscillations to and fro of those singular jets ot Igj* 

 from its head, which created so much astonishment among J ^ 

 pean observers, from day to day, and even from hour t0 h ° ur? j ar 

 him to conclude the inherence in the cometary matter °^ a J^ 

 or magnetic energy, and even to make (Astronomische JS^ cn 



