Page:Hector Macpherson - Herschel (1919).djvu/24

18 and grinding glasses. "Every leisure moment was eagerly snatched at for resuming some work which was in progress, without taking time for changing dress, and many a lace ruffle was torn or bespattered by molten pitch." From now onwards, Caroline proved herself the devoted assistant and helper of her brother, keeping house for him, assisting him in music and in his work of telescope-making. "By way of keeping him alive," she says, "I was constantly obliged to feed him by putting the victuals by bits into his mouth". This was once the case when, in order to finish a seven-foot mirror, he had not taken his hands from it for sixteen hours together. "In general he was never unemployed at meals, but was always at those times contriving or making drawings of whatever came in his mind. Generally I was obliged to read to him whilst he was at the turning lathe or polishing mirrors, 'Don Quixote,' 'Arabian Nights' Entertainments,' the novels of Sterne, Fielding, etc.; serving tea and supper without interrupting the work with which he was engaged. . . . and sometimes lending a hand. . . . My brother Alex, was absent from Bath for some months every summer, but when at home he took much pleasure to execute some turning or clockmaker's work for his brother."

Herschel was not content with the construction of one or two telescopes. The work went on during the remainder of his stay in Bath. How he contrived to continue the construction of telescopes while making long-continued surveys of the heavens—all in the spare time which he was able to snatch from his busy career as a professional musician—must always remain more or less of a mystery.

His earliest observations were on the Moon and planets. In 1776 he made a number of examinations of the lunar surface, and three years later was engaged in measuring the heights of the lunar mountains. From 1774 onwards, he carefully observed Saturn, and in