Read Ebook: The Story of the Herschels a Family of Astronomers Sir William Herschel Sir John Herschel Caroline Herschel by Anonymous

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On the 4th of October 1806 she writes:--

"My brother came from Brighton. The same night two parties from the castle came to see the comet, and during the whole month my brother had not an evening to himself. As he was then in the midst of polishing the forty-foot mirror, rest became absolutely necessary after a day spent in that most laborious work; and it has ever been my opinion, that on the 14th of October his nerves received a shock of which he never got the better afterwards; for on that day he had hardly dismissed his troop of men, when visitors assembled, and from the time it was dark till past midnight he was on the grass-plot, surrounded by between fifty and sixty persons, without having had time for putting on proper clothing, or for the least nourishment passing his lips.

From this dangerous attack Sir William recovered, but thenceforth it was clear to his friends that his strength gradually decreased, though not his enthusiasm or his industry. He persevered in his life-long labours with all his old intellectual force. What failed him was neither his tender affections nor his mental powers; but his body refused to answer all the demands made upon it by the resolute will,--the sword was slowly but surely wearing out the scabbard. Under the date of April 2, 1819, we meet with an ominous entry in his loving and faithful sister's diary:--

"My brother left Slough, accompanied by Lady Herschel, for Bath, he being very unwell; and the constant complaint of giddiness in the head so much increased, that they were obliged to be four nights on the road both going and coming. The last moments before he stepped into the carriage were spent in walking with me through his library and workrooms, pointing with anxious looks to every shelf and drawer, desiring me to examine all, and to make memorandums of them as well as I could. He was hardly able to support himself; and his spirits were so low, that I found difficulty in commanding my voice so far as to give him the assurance he should find on his return that my time had not been misspent.

"When I was left alone, I found that I had no easy task to perform, for there were packets of writings to be examined which had not been looked at for the last forty years. But I did not pass a single day without working in the library as long as I could read a letter without candlelight, and taking with me papers to copy, which employed me for best part of the night; and thus I was enabled to give my brother a clear account of what had been done at his return. But he returned home much worse than he went, and for several days hardly noticed my handiwork."

To this same year of decay and decline belongs a small slip of yellow paper, inscribed with the following lines in a tremulous and feeble handwriting, which is jealously preserved by the illustrious astronomer's descendants:--

"LINA,--There is a great comet. I want you to assist me. Come to dine, and spend the day here. If you can come soon after one o'clock, we shall have time to prepare maps and telescopes. I saw its situation last night,--it has a long tail.

Then follows:--

"C. HERSCHEL."

We know of nothing more touching in literary history than this noble, self-sacrificing, generous affection of the sister towards her eminent brother. Such instances of absolute self-denial and all-absorbing love elevate our opinion of human nature generally, and prove that something of the Divine image lingers in it still.

Herschel was now bordering upon the ripe old age of eighty, and it is no wonder that, after a life of incessant study, his strength should daily diminish. In 1822 it became painfully evident to his attached relatives and friends that the end was not far off; and on the 25th of August he passed away to his rest. We owe an account of his last days to his sister, but for whose pious care, indeed, very little of his private life would have been known, and Herschel could have been judged only from the recorded results of his immense labours.

Afterwards she wrote:--

"Of my dear nephew's advice I could not avail myself, for I knew that at that time he had weighty concerns on his mind. And, besides, my whole life almost has passed away in the delusion that, next to my eldest brother, none but Dietrich was capable of giving me advice where to leave my few relics, consisting of a few books and my sweeper . And for the last twenty years I kept to the resolution of never opening my lips to my dear brother William about worldly concerns, let me be ever so much at a loss for knowing right from wrong."

Miss Herschel proceeds to note that on the afternoons of the 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th of August, she, "as usual," spent some hours with her brother.

On the 15th she hastened to the accustomed place, where she generally found him, with the newspaper which she was to read aloud for his amusement. But, instead, she found assembled there several of his nearest friends, who informed her that her aged brother had been compelled to return to his room. She lost no time in seeking him. He was attended by Lady Herschel and his housekeeper, who were administering everything which was likely to keep up his failing strength.

Miss Herschel observed that he was much irritated, with the irritation natural to old age and extreme bodily feebleness, at his inability to grant a friend's request for some token of remembrance for his father. No sooner did he see Miss Herschel, the loving companion and fellow-worker of so many years, than he characteristically employed her to fetch one of his last papers, and a plate of the forty-foot telescope. "But, for the universe," says Miss Herschel, "I could not have looked twice at what I had snatched from the shelf; and when he faintly asked if the breaking up of the Milky Way was in it, I said, 'Yes,' and he looked content." I cannot help remembering this circumstance; it was the last time I was sent to the library on such an occasion. That the anxious care for his papers and workrooms never ended but with his life, was proved by his frequent whispered inquiries if they were locked and the key safe; of which I took care to assure him that they were, and the key in Lady Herschel's hands.

After struggling for some thirty minutes against his rapidly increasing weakness, the great astronomer, bowed by his burden of years and labours, was forced to retire to his bed, with little hope that he would ever rise from it again. For ten days and nights his wife and sister watched by his side in painful suspense, until, on the 25th of August, the end came. Peacefully closed a life which had passed in a peace and quietness not often vouchsafed to man.

Herschel, says a brother astronomer, will never cease to occupy an eminent place in the small group of our contemporary men of genius, while his name will descend to the most distant posterity. The variety and the magnificence of his labours vie with their extent. The more they are studied, the more they are admired. For it is with great men as it is with great movements in the Arts and in national history,--we cannot understand them without observing them from different points of view.

What a brilliant roll of achievements is recalled to the mind by the name of William Herschel! The discovery of Uranus, and of its satellites; of the fifth and sixth satellites of Saturn; of the many spots at the poles of Mars; of the rotation of Saturn's ring; of the belts of Saturn; of the rotation of Jupiter's satellites; of the daily period of Saturn and Venus; and of the motions of binary sidereal systems,--added to his investigations into nebulae, the Milky Way, and double, triple, and multiple stars;--all this we owe to his patient, his persevering, his daring genius! He may almost be styled the Father of Modern Astronomy.

We now propose to furnish a brief sketch of the life of Sir John Frederick William Herschel, the only son of Sir William, and not less illustrious as a man of science.

He was born at Slough, in the year 1792. Evincing considerable talents at a very early age, he received a careful private education under Mr. Rogers, a Scottish mathematician of distinguished merit; and afterwards was sent to St. John's College, Cambridge, always famous as a nursery of mathematical and scientific prodigies! Here he pursued his studies with remarkable success, suffering no obstacles to daunt him, and wasting no opportunities of improvement. His fellow-collegians regarded him as one who would add to the high repute of the college, and rejoiced at the brilliant ease with which he passed every examination. In 1813 he took his degree of B.A., and consummated a long series of successes by becoming "senior wrangler," and "Smith's prizeman;" these being the two highest distinctions to which a Cambridge scholar can attain.

In the same year, when he was hardly twenty-one, he published a work entitled, "A Collection of Examples of the Application of the Calculus to Finite Differences." To our young readers such a title will convey no meaning; and we refer to it here only to illustrate the industry and careful thought of the young student, which had rendered possible such a result.

Returning to Slough, he continued his studies in mathematics, chemistry, and natural philosophy, and in various publications exhibited that faculty of observation and analyzation, that intelligence and scrupulousness in collecting facts, and that boldness in deducing new inferences from them, which were characteristic of his illustrious father. The subjects he took up were so abstruse, that we could not hope to make our readers understand what he accomplished, or how far he excelled his predecessors in his grasp and comprehension of them. For instance: if we tell them that in 1820 he wrote a paper "On the Theory and Summation of Series;" communicated to the Cambridge Philosophical Society his discovery that the two kinds of rotatory polarization in rock crystal were related to the plagihedral faces of that mineral; and issued an able treatise "On Certain Remarkable Instances of Deviation from Newton's Tints in the Polarized Tints of Uniaxal Crystals,"--they will gain no very distinct idea of the significance or value of these researches. Again: it will not be very intelligible to them to be informed that, in 1822, he communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh a paper "On the Absorption of Light by Coloured Media", in which he enunciated a new method of measuring the dispersion of transparent bodies by stopping the green, yellow, and most refrangible red rays, and thus rendering visible the rays situated rigorously at the end of the spectrum. But they will understand that these results could have been attained only by the most assiduous industry and the most unflinching perseverance. And it is on account of this industry and this perseverance that we recommend Herschel as an example to our readers. They may not make the same progress in science, or achieve the same reputation. It is not necessary they should. Humble work is not less honourable, if it be done conscientiously, and with a sincere desire to do the best that it is in our power to do.

An interesting feature in the younger Herschel's character was his loving care for his father's fame. He was ever most anxious that the full measure of his services to science should be recognized and appreciated. Thus, in 1823, he writes to his aunt:--

"I have been long threatening to send you a long letter, but have always been prevented by circumstances and want of leisure from executing my intention. The truth is, I have been so much occupied with astronomy of late, that I have had little time for anything else--the reduction of those double stars, and the necessity it has put me under of looking over the journals, reviews, &c, for information on what has already been done, and in many cases of re-casting up my father's measures, swallows up a great deal of time and labour. But I have the satisfaction of being able to state that our results in most instances confirm and establish my father's views in a remarkable manner. These inquiries have taken me off the republication of his printed papers for the present.

"I think I shall be adding more to his fame by pursuing and verifying his observations than by reprinting them. But I have by no means abandoned the idea. Meanwhile, I am not sorry to hear they are about to be translated into German.... I hope this season to commence a series of observations with the twenty-foot reflector, which is now in fine order. The forty-foot is no longer capable of being used, but I shall suffer it to stand as a monument."

In reference to this famous telescope, we may digress to state that its remains have been carefully preserved.

The metal tube of the instrument, carrying at one end the recently cleaned mirror of four feet ten inches in diameter, has been placed horizontally in the meridian line, on solid piles of masonry, in the midst of the circle where the apparatus used in manoeuvring it was formerly placed. On the 1st of January 1840, Sir John Herschel, his wife, their seven children, and some old family servants, assembled at Slough. Exactly at noon the party walked several times in procession round the instrument; they then entered the gigantic tube, seated themselves on benches previously prepared, and chanted a requiem with English words composed by Sir John Herschel himself. Then issuing from the tube, they ranged themselves around it, while its opening was hermetically sealed.

In March 1821, the younger Herschel, in conjunction with Sir James South, undertook a series of observations on the distances and positions of three hundred and eighty double and triple stars, by means of two splendid achromatic telescopes of five and seven focal length. These were continued during 1822 and 1823, and have proved of great service to astronomers.

Having pursued with much zeal the study of optics, and experimented largely and carefully on the double refraction and polarization of light, he compiled a treatise on the subject for the "Encyclopaedia Metropolitana" It has been translated into French by M. Quetelet; and both foreign and English men of science have been accustomed to regard it as indicating a new point of departure in the important branch of science to which it is devoted.

"For the last two or three days we have been looking at houses, and have all but agreed for one--a most beautiful place within four or five miles out of town, called 'The Grove.' In point of situation it is a perfect paradise, in rich and magnificent mountain-scenery, and sheltered from all winds, even the fierce south-easter, by thick surrounding woods. I must reserve for my next all description of the gorgeous display of flowers which adorns this splendid country, as well as of the astonishing brilliancy of the constellations, which the calm, clear nights show off to great advantage."

Mr. Herschel settled at Feldhausen, about 142 feet above the sea, and in long. 22? 46' 9".11 E., and lat. 33? 58' 26".59 S. Here he entered upon his great series of observations of the southern heavens, which he continued with unwearied ardour for a period of four years. The results were afterwards published, at the cost of the Duke of Northumberland, in a work entitled "Results of Astronomical Observations made in 1834-35-36-37-38, at the Cape of Good Hope." In this superb work, which placed its author on an equality with the most brilliant and illustrious astronomers, he defined and described 4015 of the nebulae and star-groups in the southern hemisphere, and 2995 of the double stars; besides entering into a variety of valuable particulars relative to Halley's comet, the solar spots, the satellites of Saturn, and the measurement of the apparent magnitude of stars.

Continuing his career of scientific industry, he issued, in 1849, his important and very valuable treatise entitled "Outlines of Astronomy." In 1845, he was appointed President of the British Association; and in 1848, of the Royal Astronomical Society. To his other honours was added that of Chevalier of the Prussian order, "Pour la M?rite," founded by Frederick the Great, and bestowed at all times with a discrimination which renders it a deeply-coveted distinction. Of the academies and leading scientific institutions of the Continent and the United States, he was also an honorary or corresponding member.

Besides his works on meteorology and physical geography, he published, in 1867, an admirable little volume--"Familiar Lectures on Scientific Subjects." In this he showed that he could write with as much ease and intelligibility for the general public as for the higher order of scientific inquirers. His style in this valuable manual of information has a charm of its own, and entices the reader into the consideration of subjects apparently abstruse. He is earned on from page to page without any great mental effort, and finds himself rapidly mastering difficulties which he had been accustomed to regard as insuperable.

Let us take the first lecture on "Volcanoes and Earthquakes," and obtain a glimpse of Herschel's mode of treatment. He refers to the greater and more permanent agencies which affect the configuration of our planet. Everywhere, he says, and along every coast-line, we see the sea warring against the land, and overcoming it; wearing it and eating it down, and battering it to pieces; grinding those pieces to powder; carrying that powder away, and spreading it out over its own bottom, by the continued effect of the tides and currents. What a scene of continual activity is presented by the chalk-cliffs of Old England! How they are worn, and broken up, and fantastically sculptured by the influence of winds and waters! Precipices cut down to the sea-beach, constantly hammered by the waves, and constantly crumbling; the beach itself made of the flints outstanding after the softer chalk has been ground down and washed away; themselves grinding one another under the same ceaseless discipline--first rounded into pebbles, then worn into sand, and then carried further and further down the slope, to be replaced by fresh ones from the same source. Here the likeness of an old Gothic cathedral, with lofty arch, and shapely pinnacle; there the similitude of a mass of medieval fortifications, with crumbling battlements and shattered towers!

The same thing, the same waste and wear, is going on everywhere, round every coast. The rivers contribute their share to the great work of change. Look at the sand-banks at the mouth of the Thames. What are they, says Sir John Herschel, but the materials of our island carried out to sea by the stream? The Ganges carries away from the soil of India, and delivers into the sea, twice as much solid substance weekly as is contained in the Great Pyramid of Egypt. The Irawaddy sweeps off from Burmah sixty-two cubic feet of earth in every second of time, on an average Sometimes vast amount of earthy materials is transferred from one locality to another by river agency, as is the case in the deltas of the Nile and the Mississippi.

These changes operate silently, continuously, and unperceived by the ordinary observer; but Nature does not limit herself always and everywhere to such peaceful agencies. At times, and in certain places, she acts with startling abruptness and extraordinary violence. Let the volcano and the earthquake attest the immensity of her power. Let the earthquake tell how, within the memory of man, the whole coast-line of Chili, for 100 miles about Valparaiso, with the mighty chain of the Andes, was hoisted at one blow, and in a single night , from two to seven feet above its former level, leaving the beach below the old low-water mark high and dry. One of the Andean peaks upheaved on this occasion was the colossal mass of Aconcagua, which overlooks Valparaiso, and measures nearly 24,000 feet in height. On the same occasion, at least 10,000 square miles of country were estimated as having been upheaved; and the upheaval was not confined to the land, but extended far away to sea,--which was proved by the soundings off Valparaiso and along the coast having been found considerably shallower than they were before the shock.

With a similar fertility of illustration, Herschel sets before us the phenomena of volcanic eruptions and their extraordinary effects.

In like manner Sir John proceeds to describe an eruption of Mount Tomboro, in the island of Sumbawa, the influence of which was felt to a distance of 1000 miles from its centre, in strange tremulous motions of the earth, and in the clash and clang of loud explosions. He says that he had seen it computed that the quantity of ashes and lava ejected in the course of this tremendous eruption would have formed three mountains of the size of Mont Blanc.

As to the nature of the forces which operate to produce this astounding result, Herschel puts forward a theory of singular simplicity and directness.

"The origin," he says, "of such an enormous power thus occasionally exerting itself, will no doubt seem very marvellous--little short, indeed, of miraculous intervention; but the mystery, after all, is not quite so great as at first it seems. We are permitted to look a little way into these great secrets of Nature; not far enough, indeed, to clear up every difficulty, but quite enough to penetrate us with admiration of that wonderful system of counterbalances and compensations, that adjustment of causes and consequences, by which, throughout all nature, evils are made to work their own cure, life to spring out of death, and renovation to tread in the steps and efface the vestiges of decay." And he finds the clew to the secret, the key of the whole matter, in the earth's vast central heat. This it is which produces the convulsions that change the terrestrial configuration, and fill the minds of men with fear and awe. Conceive of "a sea of fire, on which we are all floating, land and sea,"--a boiling, seething, incandescent reservoir in the centre of our planet; and the solution of the problem will seem to you not difficult. Such a sea would necessarily roll its liquid matter to and fro; and the removal of ever so small a portion from one point to another on the earth's surface would tend to disturb the equilibrium of the floating mass; just as, when a ship is launched into the river, the water it displaces is carried to the opposite bank with greater or less violence, according to the amount of displacement.

It is impossible, adds Herschel, but that this increase of pressure in some places and relief in others must be very unequal in their bearings. So that at some point or another our planet's floating crust must be brought into a state of strain, and if there be a weak or a soft part a crack will at last take place. This is exactly what happened in the earthquake which originated the Allah Bund, or God's Wall, in Cutch.

Volcanic eruptions are easily explicable on this principle,--the volcano being simply a vent for the passage of heated and molten matter, which the elevating pressure of the liquid below tends to eject. It is a well-known fact that volcanoes and earthquake-centres are nearly all situated on the borders or in the immediate neighbourhood of seas and oceans; and the reason would seem to be, that at such positions the accumulation of transported matter would necessarily attain its maximum, to whatever cause it might be due. Then again, as Herschel points out, the eruption of scorite and lava from the mouths of volcanoes, the result of the upward movement of the fiery liquid below, compensates in some degree for the downward transfer of material by detritus and alluvial deposits. Hence it may be inferred that, on the whole, the quantity of solid matter above the ocean-level probably remains nearly always at the same amount.

It is with this ease and lucidity that Sir John deals with scientific subjects of the greatest importance,--his genius resembling the elephant's trunk, which can balance a straw or rend an oak. In private life he displayed a simplicity of manner in harmony with the general unassumingness of his character. In his books as in society, in society as in his books, he was the same,--that is, free from all ostentation, free from self-pride, free from the arrogance of superior knowledge, and as ready to unbend himself to a child as to discourse with men of science.

His career was a tranquil and a prosperous one, and, apart from the record of his discoveries and his honours, presents nothing of interest. He was peculiarly happy in his domestic relations; and in the wide circle of friends attracted by the mingled charm of his intellect and manners. A devout Christian, a man of generosity and culture, a philosopher of great breadth of view and infinite patience of research,--we can place few better or brighter examples before our English youth than Sir John Herschel.

We could not conclude our notice of this remarkable family without some further allusion to its not least remarkable member--Caroline Lucretia Herschel.

To her varied accomplishments, her astronomical researches, and, above all, to her unwearied and unselfish devotion to her brother William, we have already made frequent allusion. She seemed to live for him and in him, to live for his fame and prosperity; and she poured out at his feet the treasures of an inexhaustible affection. To assist him in his labours, at whatever sacrifice, was her sole object in life; and she was certainly more careful for his reputation than was he himself. During his declining years she was his principal stay and support, and she was in daily attendance to note down or to calculate the results of his observations. His death was a severe blow to her; but, with characteristic courage, she retired to Hanover, gave herself up to scientific pursuits, and in comparative solitude spent her later years.

Her biographer writes:--

"When all was over, her only desire seems to have been to hurry away. Hardly was her brother laid in his grave than she collected the few things she cared to keep, and left for ever the country where she had spent fifty years of her life, living and toiling for him and him only. 'If I should leave off making memorandums of such events as affect or are interesting to me, I should feel like what I am,--namely, a person that has nothing more to do in this world.' Mournful words! doubly mournful, when we know that the writer had nearly half an ordinary lifetime still between her and that grave which she made haste to prepare, in the hope that her course was nearly run. Who can think of her, at the age of seventy-two, heart-broken and desolate, going back to the home of her youth in the fond expectation of finding consolation, without a pang of sympathetic pity? She found everything changed."

"The varying year with blade and sheaf Clothes and re-clothes the happy plains; Here rests the sap within the leaf, Here stays the blood along the veins. Faint shadows, vapours lightly curled, Faint murmurs from the meadows come, Like hints and echoes of the world To spirits folded in the womb."

But we regain the old familiar places, and, alas! we find that change has been as busy with them as with us. The signs of decay are upon the trees; the brook has ceased to flow; the rose-bush has withered to the ground. There are trees as green and streams as musical and flowers as sweet as in our youth; but they are not the streams or flowers or trees which delighted us, and to us they can never be as dear. But a worse alteration has taken place than any visible in the face of nature. We discover that we have lost the old habits, the old capacity of enjoyment; and we soon discover that it was the sympathies, the hopes, the aspirations of youth which, after all, lent to these early scenes their rare and irrecoverable attraction.

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