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§§ 252, 253] in using odd fragments of time, such as intervals between, the acts at a theatre, for his beloved telescopes.

A letter written by him in 1783 gives a good account of the spirit in which he was at this time carrying out his astronomical work:—

In accordance with this last resolution he executed on four separate occasions, beginning in 1775, each time with an instrument of greater power than on the preceding, a review of the whole heavens, in which everything that appeared in any way remarkable was noticed and if necessary more carefully studied. He was thus applying to astronomy methods comparable with those of the naturalist who aims at drawing up a complete list of the flora or fauna of a country hitherto little known.

253. In the course of the second of these reviews, made with a telescope of the Newtonian type, 7 feet in length, he made the discovery (March 13th, 1781) which gave him a European reputation and enabled him to abandon music as a profession and to devote the whole of his energies to science.

If Herschel's suspicion had been correct the discovery would have been of far less interest than it actually was, for when the new body was further observed and attempts were made to calculate its path, it was found that no