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Still more important were the great star-maps of the Berlin Academy, undertaken at Bessel's suggestion, with the same object of distinguishing errant from fixed stars, and executed, under Encke's supervision, during the years 1830-59. They have played a noteworthy part in the history of planetary discovery, nor of the minor kind alone. We have now to recount an event unique in scientific history.
The nearest star of all, Alpha Centauri, visible only in latitudes south of our middle ones, is perhaps half as far as Bessel's star, while Sirius and one or two others are nearly at the same distance. About 100 stars, all told, have had their parallax measured with a greater or less degree of probability.
It became, moreover, a centre of improvement, not for Germany alone, but for the whole astronomical world. During two-and-thirty years it was the scene of Bessel's labours, and Bessel's labours had for their aim the reconstruction, on an amended and uniform plan, of the entire science of observation. A knowledge of the places of the stars is the foundation of astronomy.
Argelander now obtained an entirely concordant result from the large number of 390, determined with the scrupulous accuracy characteristic of Bessel's work and his own.
About dawn, his physical fatigue asserted itself, and he went to bed and slept at last in spite of dreaming. He rose late, unrested and anxious, and in considerable facial pain. The morning papers had no news of Mr. Bessel's aberration it had come too late for them. Mr.
Gould, computing its orbit from his first observations at Cordoba, found it to agree so closely with that arrived at by Bessel for the comet of 1807 that he telegraphed to Europe, June 1, announcing the unexpected return of that body. So unexpected that theoretically it was not possible before the year 3346; and Bessel's investigation was one which inspired and eminently deserved confidence.
Foiled and terror-stricken, Mr. Bessel swept back again, to find his desecrated body whooping in a glorious frenzy down the Burlington Arcade.... And now the attentive reader begins to understand Mr. Bessel's interpretation of the first part of this strange story. The being whose frantic rush through London had inflicted so much injury and disaster had indeed Mr. Bessel's body, but it was not Mr.
Nor did Bessel's achievement long await corroboration.
Vincey's perplexities, to which the fever of his bruise added fresh irritation, became at last intolerable, and, after a fruitless visit to the Albany, he went down to St. Paul's Churchyard to Mr. Hart, Mr. Bessel's partner, and, so far as Mr. Vincey knew, his nearest friend. He was surprised to learn that Mr.
Bessel's apartment, and when at length he did attain an uneasy slumber it was at once disturbed by a very vivid and distressing dream of Mr. Bessel. He saw Mr. Bessel gesticulating wildly, and with his face white and contorted. And, inexplicably mingled with his appearance, suggested perhaps by his gestures, was an intense fear, an urgency to act.
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