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In this superb work, which placed its author on an equality with the most brilliant and illustrious astronomers, he defined and described 4015 of the nebulae and star-groups in the southern hemisphere, and 2995 of the double stars; besides entering into a variety of valuable particulars relative to Halley's comet, the solar spots, the satellites of Saturn, and the measurement of the apparent magnitude of stars.
Nebulae, especially, are often so excessively faint that they can only be properly observed by an eye which is in that highly sensitive condition which is obtained by long continuance in darkness. The frequent withdrawal of the eye from the dark field of the telescope, and the application of it to reading by artificial light, is very prejudicial to its use for the more delicate purpose.
'Just one, said some coaxing person; 'we'll be satisfied with only one. But no: he would not. He was hardened, 'he wouldn't split. And Herschel was thus led, after waiting as long as flesh and blood could wait, to infer two classes of nebulae; one that were stars; and another that were not stars, nor ever were meant to be stars.
Gone, but not forgotten; yet the world will in time forget even the amaranthine flowers must fade. Of them all we see but one star that blazes the brighter as the years run on, and that one long mistaken for a mere erratic comet sans substance, or unformed nebulae hanging like a splotch of semi-luminous vapor in a great void.
Those who heard him read his Thesis at the Medical Commencement will not soon forget the impression made by his fine personal appearance and manners, nor the universal interest excited in the audience, as he read, with his beautiful enunciation, that striking paper entitled "Unresolved Nebulae in Vital Science."
Indeed, they seemed to be sensible of this themselves, and they now yielded to the force of Herschel's arguments so far as to show themselves in the new character of nebulae spangled with stars; these are the stellar nebulae; quite as much as you could expect in so short a time: Rome was not built in a day: and one must have some respect to stellar feelings. He made a clean breast of it.
At the period where the question is taken up in Laplace's treatment of the nebular theory, the shape of this mass is regarded as spheroidal; but at an earlier period its shape may well have been as irregular as that of any of the nebulae which we now see in distant parts of the heavens, for, whatever its primitive shape, the equalization of its rotation would in time make it spheroidal.
Indeed, they seemed to be sensible of this themselves, and they now yielded to the force of Herschel's arguments so far as to show themselves in the new character of nebulae spangled with stars; these are the stellar nebulae; quite as much as you could expect in so short a time: Rome was not built in a day: and one must have some respect to stellar feelings. He made a clean breast of it.
"Dick," said Miss Elton scornfully, "don't make the mistake of considering yourself a plum. Mrs. Appleton told me that the Swami feeds on dew and flaming nebulae." "Humph!" said Dick, "I think he's a big bronze fraud." "Oh, come, men may be great without playing foot-ball," she laughed. "Well, he's not for me. I can believe in almost any kind of a prophet except one that works miracles."
These additions certainly afford us a new epoch in the annals of the solar system, and of astronomy itself. It is somewhat remarkable, that Herschel, who in the course of his observations traced certain nebulae, the light from which must have been two millions of years in reaching the earth, should never have remarked these planets, which, so to speak, lay at his feet.
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