Lyon County times. [volume] (Silver City, Nev.) 1874-1907, 1875-05-09
The Herschel Family.

1enlus often runs in families, and So
dullness. But it rarely happens that CO.
mus runs in the same grooves, and delights
IN the same studies. The Herschel family
mas won eminence in England, but all its
members took to astronomy. The Popu-
Tar Science Monthly says:
what an example and what instruction
may pe found in the long career of Will
nam Herschel, who passed half century
In sounding the mysterious depths of the
universe! The son of a poor musician
burdened with numerous family,-he
embraced the paternal profession, and
went, when twenty years old, to try his
fortune In England. He barely earned a
ilVlng by giving music lessons, and direct
ing concerts or oratorios, when he was an
pointed organist at Halifax, then soon
after filled the same office in Bath. He
passsd his leisure time in studying works
on astronomy
AS he was not rich enough to purchase
telescope, he went to work, and after a
thousand attempts, succeeded in making,
In IVA, five-foot reflector, with which
he observed Saturn's ring. Encouraged
by his first success, the organist of Bath
entered upon the construction of mirrors
OF seven feet, then ten, and twenty feet of
focus.
He had more than two hundred before
attaining the desired perfection, and the
total number of mirrors that he worked
upon in succession exceeded 400. In
l77o he had the good fortune to discover
the planet Uranus, which extended the
boundary of the solar system. He was
then 43 years old.
This discovery drew upon him the at
tention OF Europe. George Ill. granted
him pension, and dwelling at Slough,
near Windsor Castle. He then com
menced that methodical review of the
heavens, by means of which he discovered
more than 1900 nebul@, and suggested
so many new views of the universe. The
greatest part of his labor was executed
with instruments of moderate dimensions;
he rarely used the great telescope of forty
feet, the mirror of which was easily tar
nished by the action of the moisture of
the night; he used it, however, in the dis
covery of the sixth satellite of Saturn.
William Herschel died in 1922; the
year before his death, at the age of eighty
three, he communicated his last paper to
the Astronomical Society of London,
which, since its foundation, had chosen
him for president.
In all his researches he was assisted by
his sister Caroline, who had lived with
him ever since she was twenty-five years
old, and aided him in his observations as
well as his calculations. In this way he
was able to astonish the scientific world
by the rapidity with which his publica-
tons succeed each other. Caroline Her.
schel died at Hanover, her native city, in
1S49, at the age of ninetyeight.
Sir John Herschel, the only son Of the
great astronomer, worthily continued these
illustrious traditions. He resumed and
completed the exploration of the heavens
commenced by his father, at first at Slough
and then at the Cape Good Hope where
he transported a telescope of twenty feet.
He died in 1871, after having contributed,
by labors of the highest order, to the pro-
gress of science.
One of his sons, Alexander Herschel, is
equally devoted to astronomical pursuits,