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54 observe and measure as well. He was one of a race of working astronomers of whom England had cause to be proud. They might be called, but they were not amateurs.

The second paper, read the same day, and headed "Astronomical Observations relating to the Mountains of the Moon," was more ambitious, and formed a better prelude to the path of discovery, on which Herschel would soon enter. He begins with an apology for attempting to ascertain the height of the lunar mountains, but a "knowledge of the construction of the moon leads us insensibly to several consequences, which might not appear at first; such as the great probability, not to say almost absolute certainty, of her being inhabited." He is equally certain that the moon rejoices in an atmosphere like the earth's. Passing over this scientific faith, in the meantime, as a heritage he received from the past but had not examined, we find him boldly venturing to dispute the conclusions arrived at by Galileo, Hevelius, and others of great name. Galileo had made the lunar mountains higher than any then known on the earth, five and a half miles; but Hevelius reduced this