Field.] 21 8 , [Dee. 1, 
In 1831, King William, as a tribute to his great scientific services con- 
ferred on him the honor of knighthood. 
Sir John Herschel’s researches on the positions of Nebule and clusters 
of stars, took up many years of his life. Several of the results he pub- 
lished in conjunction with Mr. (after Sir James) South, for which a re- 
ward of a gold medal was presented to both Astronomers. Were it not 
for the sincere love of science, the toil of these proceedings from mid- 
night to sunrise would not have taken place; for no one can tell the strain 
on the constitution, the severity of which is gleaned from his observations 
while discussing the double stars. He remarked : 
“Should I be fortunate enough to bring this work to a conclusion, I 
shall then joyfully yield up a subject on which I have bestowed a large 
portion of my time, and expended much of my health and strength, to 
others who will, hereafter, by the aid of those masterpieces of workman- 
ship, which modern art places at their disposal, pursue with comparative 
ease and convenience an inquiry which has presented to myself difficulties 
such as at one period had almost compelled me to abandon it, in despair.’’ 
Tn 1838, Sir John Herschel was awarded the Royal Medal of the Royal 
Society, for his paper ‘‘ On the Investigation of the Orbits of Revolving 
Double Stars.”” The Duke of Sussex, President, gave the following 
graphic account of his labors : 
“Sir John Herschel has devoted himself, as you well know, for many 
years at least, as much from filial piety as from inclination, to the exam- 
ination of those remote regions of the universe into which his illustrious 
father first penetrated, and which he has transmitted to his son as a he- 
reditary possession, with which the name of Herschel must be associated 
for allages. He has subjected the whole sphere of the heavens within 
his observation, to a repeated and systematic scrutiny. He has determ- 
ined the position and described the character of the most remarkable of 
the Nebulaz. He has observed and registered many thousand distances 
and angles of position of double stars, and has shown, from the compari- 
son of his own with other observations, that many of them form systems, 
whose variations of position are subject to invariable laws. He has suc- 
ceeded by a happy combination of graphical construction with numerical 
calculations, in determining the relative elements of the orbits which 
some of them describe round each other, and in forming tables of their 
motions ; and he has thus demonstrated that the laws of gravitation, 
which are exhibited as it were, in miniature in our own planetary system, 
prevail also in the most distant regions of space ; a memorable conclusion 
justly entitled by the generality of its character to be considered as form- 
ing an epoch in the history of Astronomy, and presenting one of the 
most magnificent examples of the simplicity and universality of those 
fundamental laws of nature, by which their great Author has shown that 
he is the same to-day and for ever, here and everywhere. 
‘That he was not a mere meditative Philosopher, but one of laborious 
research and of a practical turn, appears from the imposing catalogue of 
his written works, a few of which I may be pardoned for enumerating: 13 
