Page:Sir William Herschel, his life and works (1881).djvu/113

Rh relations with his cotemporaries were usually of the most pleasant character, though seldom intimate. This peace was broken but by one unpleasant occurrence. In the Philosophical Transactions for 1792, had communicated a series of observations made with one of  own telescopes on the atmospheres of Venus, the Moon, etc. It was not only an account of phenomena which had been seen; it was accompanied by measures, and the computations based on these led to heights and dimensions for mountains on Venus which were, to say the least, extravagant. The adjective will not seem too strong when we say that the very existence of the mountains themselves is to-day more than doubtful.

The appearances seen by were described by him in perfectly good faith, and similar ones have been since recorded. His reasoning upon them was defective, and the measures which he made were practically valueless. This paper, printed in the Transactions of the Royal Society, to which