LITTLE STARGAZER

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 80, 28 December 1929, Page 24

LITTLE STARGAZER

• • ♦ In the year 1738, a boy named William Herschel was born in Hanover. . When he was still quite young, he became a soldier in the Hanoverian army. But soldiering did not interest William and, as he could not get out of the army, he ran away ttf England and settled in Bath, where he studied music and became an organist. 'Then he gave music lessons, studied mathematics at odd moments, and became tremendously interested in the science of figures. At last he began to look at the stars and to wonder whether he could, measure the great distance which separated them from the earth. He spoke to his sister Caroline about this, and the two started to make telescopes through which to observe the stars. So enthusiastic did William and Caroline become that their house gradually turned into a workshop, and there were pieces of telescope everywhere. When William was giving a concert Caroline would watch the sky; and when he was gazing through a certain huge telescope he had made, she would sit beside him all through the night and write down his observations. Then, on March 13, 1781, William made a wonderful discovery. He found the seventh great planet in the solar system, Uranus! A little later, the king made him Royal Astronomer, and afterwards knighted him. But whenever the name of the great astronomer, Sir William Herschel is mentioned, we think also of his sister Caroline, who was an equally great astronomer. Without her help he might have been a poor teacher of music all his life.