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30 were commenced when the mountings of the telescopes were in a very unfinished state, and Herschel was "elevated fifteen feet or more on a temporary cross-beam instead of a safe gallery". Caroline Herschel herself met with a somewhat severe accident on the last day of 1783, and she left it on record that the Italian astronomer Piazzi—discoverer of the first asteroid—"did not go home without getting broken shins by falling over the rack-bar".

By the summer of 1785, Herschel decided that the old house at Datchet was impossible as a permanent residence. An attack of ague was found to be due to its damp situation. Accordingly, early in June, the Herschels removed to a house at Clay Hall, near Old Windsor, where observations were at once commenced. But trouble arose with the landlady—"a litigious woman who refused to be bound to reasonable terms"—and in the following spring Herschel fixed upon a new home at Slough, near Windsor. Thither his instruments and apparatus were transported on 3rd April, 1786, without the loss of a single hour's observation. "The last night at Clay Hall," says Caroline, "was spent in sweeping till daylight and by the next evening the telescope stood ready for observation at Slough." This was the last removal. The remainder of Herschel's life was spent at Slough—"the spot of all the world," said Arago, "where the greatest number of discoveries have been made". Here for many years, Herschel and his devoted sister worked from twilight to dawn, sweeping for clusters and nebulae, counting the stars in limited regions of the heavens, occasionally scrutinising the Moon and the planets. "If it had not been," writes Caroline, "for the intervention of a cloudy or moonlit night, I know not when he or I either would have got any sleep." In the daytime, too, his activity was ceaseless. He had to attend to his telescopes and to direct the army of workmen who were constantly employed making repairs; in addition, he was