March lo, 1881] 



NA TURE 



431 



new planet was detected by its appearance and not by its 

 motion." HerscheJ, referring to his discovery in his 

 communication to I.ichtenberg, says : " This was by no 

 means the result of chance, but a simple consequence of 

 the position of the planet on that particular evening, 

 since it occupied precisely that spot in the heavens which 

 came in the order of the minute observations that I had 

 previously mapped out for myself. Had I not seen it 

 just v/hen I did I must inevitably have come upon it soon 

 after, since my telescope was so perfect that I was able to 

 distinguish it from a fixed star in the first minute of 

 observation." It is not to be supposed that so striking 

 an object would have been viewed once and forgotten, 

 even if no motion were immediately detected. 



As is well known, Herschel feeling deeply his indebted- 

 ness to the liberality of George the Third, desired to 

 testify his gratitude by giving his planet a name which 

 would mark the epoch of its discovery, and in his letter 

 on the subject addressed to Sir Joseph Banks, then 

 president of the Royal Society, writes, " I cannot but 

 wish to take this opportunity of expressing my sense of 

 gratitude by giving the name Georgium Sidus, 



Georgium Sidus 

 jam nunc assuesce vocari, 



to a star, which (with respect to us) first began to shine 

 under his auspicious reign." 



Prof. Holden dwells upon the changes which may be 

 considered to have been effected in the state of astronomy 

 not only in England but in the whole world, simply by 

 the discovery of Uranus. " Herschel's researches would 

 have gone . into the Philosophical Transactions as the 

 work of an amateur astronomer, Mr. Herschel, of Bath. 

 They would have been praised and they would have been 

 doubted. It would have taken a whole generation to 

 have appreciated them. They would have been severely 

 tried, entirely on their merits, and finally they would have 

 stood where they stand to-day — unrivalled. But through 

 what increased labours these successes would have been 

 gained! . . . Certainly, if Herschel's mind had been 

 other than it was, the discovery of Uranus, which brought 

 him honours from every scientific society in the world, 

 and which gave him authority, might have had a hurtful 

 effect. But as he was, there was nothing which could 

 have aided his career more than this startling discovery. 

 It was needed for him. It completed the solar system 

 far more by affording a free play to a profoundly philo- 

 sophical mind, than by occupying the vacant spaces 

 beyond Saturn. His opportunities would have been pro- 

 foundly modified, though his personal worth would have 

 been the same." We think there are few astronomers 

 who will not be able to follow Prof. Holden in the views 

 he has thus forcibly expressed. 



At the hands of Sir Joseph Banks, Herschel received 

 the Copley Medal of the Royal Society in 1781, for his 

 "discovery of a new and singular star," and was formally 

 admitted a Fellow of the Society on May 30, 1782. It 

 was during this visit to London that Herschel was 

 received by the king, and as he wrote to his sister the 

 same day, met with a very gracious reception. Prof. 

 Holden reproduces from the Memoirs of Caroline 

 Herschel his letter of July 3, in which he describes his 

 visit to the Court with a 7-feet reflector, and the evening 

 having been very fine, how the instrument had given 



general satisfaction ; the king in particular, he states, 

 " enjoys observations with telescopes exceedingly.'' 

 Herschel returned to Bath in the last week of July, and 

 immediately prepared for removing to Datchct. 



Here, at the end of his second chapter, we close our 

 present notice of Prof. Holden's welcome volume, reserv- 

 ing for another week his third chapter on " Life at Datchet, 

 Clay Hall, and Slough," and the concluding one on the 

 general scientific labours of Herschel. It should be 

 stated that while taking Prof Holden's work as our text, 

 particulars have been included in this notice which are 

 not specially referred to in it, in view of the interest 

 attaching to them at the present time, when, as stated 

 above, a hundred years have elapsed since Herschel's 

 discovery of Uramis doubled the known extent of the 

 planetary system. J. R. HiND 



EXTINCT BRITISH ANIMALS 

 British Animals Extinct within Historic Times j with 

 some Account of British Wild White Cattle. By J. E. 

 Harting, F.L.S. (London: Triibner, 1880.) 



THE wild animals formerly inhabiting Britain, which 

 disappeared before the advance of the hunter 

 and farmer in historic times, have hitherto only been 

 treated in a disconnected fashion, in essays scattered 

 through various periodicals, or in portions of books 

 relating to other subjects. Mr. Harting has collected 

 together in the present volume his own essays in the Field 

 and in the Popular Science Revieiu, and has brought to bear 

 upon hi; subject a knowledge of records, and an acquaint- 

 ance with sport, which render his work extremely valuable. 

 His references are accurate, and he has availed himself 

 of nearly every source of information. Consequently we 

 have before us a work dealing with the bear, wolf, beaver, 

 reindeer, and '• wild cattle," worthy to be classed between 

 Bell's " British Quadi-upeds " on the one hand, and White's 

 "History of Selborne" on the other, relating not merely 

 to the animals, but to the forests in which they lived and 

 to the mode in which they were hunted. 



The common brown bear made its appearance on the 

 Continent in the Pleistocene age, and crossed over to 

 Britain while the areas of the North Sea and of the 

 English Channel were fertile valleys abounding in animal 

 life. Its remains occur both in the river-deposits and in 

 the caves, and have been met with in the turbaries and 

 alluvia of England and of Scotland, which belong to the 

 prehistoric period. It was hunted by the Neolithic 

 inhabitants of Britain, and used for food by the inhabitants 

 of Colchester and Richmond in Roman times. From the 

 " Penitentiale " of Archbishop Egbert (a.d. 750), in which 

 the flesh of any animal torn by dog, wolf, fox, or bear, or 

 any other wild animal is forbidden to be used for human 

 food, it is clear that it was alive in this country at that!time. 

 In the days of Edward the Confessor Norwich furnished 

 annually one bear to the king and sixfdogs for the baiting 

 of it. This however does not prove the existence of wild 

 bears in Britain at that date, because bear-baiting was 

 almost a national sport among the English until bears 

 became too costly and the public taste too refined for 

 such brutal] exhibitions. Fitz-Stephen tells us, in the 

 reign of Henry II., that the young Londoners amused 

 themselves in the forenoon of every holiday in the \vinter 



