Page:Williamherschel00simegoog.djvu/81

Rh the neighbourhood of H Geminorum, that appeared visibly larger than the rest. Being struck with its uncommon magnitude, he compared it to H Geminorum and the small star in the quartile between Auriga and Gemini, and finding it so much larger than either of them, suspected it to be a comet. . . . The sequel has shown that my surmises were well founded, this proving to be the comet we have lately observed." By the method he followed he was "enabled to distinguish the quantity and direction of the motion of this comet in a single day, to a much greater degree of exactness than could have been done in so short a time by a sector or transit instrument; nay, even an hour or two were intervals long enough to show that it was a moving body, and, consequently, had its size not pointed it out as a comet, the change of place, though so trifling as 2$1⁄4$ seconds per hour, would have been sufficient to occasion the discovery." Satisfied that he had done all he could do, Herschel concluded his paper by saying, "I failed not to give immediate notice of this moving star, and was happy to surrender it to the care of the Astronomer-Royal and others, as soon as I found they had begun their observations upon it" The moving star was not a comet. It was a wanderer, who had been seen before and classified as a fixed star. The planet was what is now called Uranus.

The announcement of the discovery sent a flutter of excitement through all the observatories of Europe, which went on increasing when it was found that they could not agree on what or who the stranger was. Almost from its first appearance English astronomers believed it to be a planet that had long been wanted