Telescopes — Life of Fraunliofer. 305 



he was apprenticed to M. Weichselberger, manufacturer 

 and polisher of glass at Munich. Being too poor to pay any 

 thing to his master, he was taken on the condition that he 

 should work for him six years without any wages. 



At Munich Fraunhoier frequented the Sunday school, but 

 as his attendance was irregular, it was a long time before he 

 learned to write or to count. In 1801, in the second year of 

 his apprenticeship, an accidental circumstance gave a new 

 turn to his fortune. Two houses having tumbled down sud- 

 denly, Fraunhofer, who lived in one of them, was buried un- 

 der its ruins ; but while others perished, he fortunately occu- 

 pied a position to which it was considered practicable to 

 open a passage. While this excavation was going on, the 

 King Maximilian often came to the spot to encourage the 

 workmen and the young prisoner ; and it was not till after a 

 labor of four hours that they were able to extricate him from 

 his perilous situation. His majesty gave directions that his 

 wounds should be carefully attended to, and as soon as he 

 had recovered, he was sent for to the palace to give an ac- 

 count of the peculiarities of his situation during the accident, 

 and of the feelings with which he was actuated. On this 

 occasion his sovereign presented him with eighteen ducats, 

 and promised to befriend him in case of need. 



Mr. Counsellor Utzschneider, afterwards his partner in the 

 great optical establishment at Benedictbauern, took him also 

 under his protection, and occasionally saw him. Fraunho- 

 fer, full of joy, showed him the king's present, and commu- 

 nicated to him his plans, and the way in which he proposed 

 to spend the money. He ordered a machine to be made for 

 polishing glass, and he employed himself on Sundays in grind- 

 ing and finishing optical len.-es. He was, however, often 

 baffled in his schemes, as he had no theoretical and mathe- 

 matical knowledge. In this situation M. Utzschneider gave 

 him the mathematical treatises of Klemm and Tenger, and 

 pointed out to him several books on optics. Fraunhofer 

 soon saw, that, without some knowledge of pure mathemat- 

 ics, it was difficult to make great progress in optics, and he 

 therefore made them one of the branches of his studies. 



When his master saw him occupied with books, he prohib- 

 ited him from using them, and other persons whom he con- 

 sulted did not encourage him to undertake the study of math- 

 ematics and optics without assistance, and at a time when 

 he was scarcely able to write. These obstructions, how- 



VoL. XVI.— No. 2. 1 2 



