By way of illustrating the effects obtained with his philosophical apparatus, he constructed a popular kind of actinometer, in the shape of an “American dispatch,” made of a few pieces of wood and two panes of glass, in which eggs were roasted, and beef-steaks broiled, by sun-heat alone. The viands thus cosmically cooked were “eaten with no small relish by the entertained bystanders.”
Mimas and Enceladus, Saturn’s innermost moons, had persistently eluded Herschel’s search for them in England; but, to his great delight, both favoured him at the Cape. His observations of them in 1835–6 were the first since his father’s time. The next detection of Mimas was by Mr. Lassell in 1846.
The extent, variety, and completeness of the work done at Feldhausen strike one with ever-fresh admiration. It seems scarcely credible that so much was accomplished in four years by a single unaided individual. Herschel’s only assistant was an honest mechanic named John Stone, faithful, serviceable, in his way skilful, but not a “being” of the “quick as lightning” sort, imagined and realised by Caroline Herschel. It is related that during his observations of Halley’s comet, Sir John on one occasion fell asleep, and while he remained in this condition of peril (owing to the elevation and insecurity of his perch), Stone kept dutifully turning the telescope. At last the astronomer awoke, rubbed his eyes, looked down the great tube, saw nothing, rubbed his eyes again, and exclaimed, “Why, John, where’s the comet?” The comet had meantime set, and the telescope was duly directed towards its place behind Table Mountain!
The splendid fulfilment of his astronomical tasks did not represent the whole of Herschel’s activity at the Cape. He collected a large store of tidal data for Dr. Whewell; started scientific meteorology; established a system of national education still working beneficially, and presided over the South African Literary and Scientific Institution, the members of which presented him with a gold medal on his departure. His visit made an epoch in the development of the Colony.
To himself personally it was a time of intense enjoyment. His labours, arduous though they were, proceeded calmly, disembarrassed from jostling claims and counter-claims. They were carried on with absorbed enthusiasm, inspired in part by their sublime nature, in part by the excitement of novelty. His family throve and multiplied at Feldhausen. Sir Thomas Maclear’s friendship supplied unfailing social pleasure. An exhilarating climate, moreover, enchanting scenery, translucent skies, blossoming glens and hillsides worthy of Maeldune’s Isle of Flowers, contributed to render his southern sojourn a radiant episode. He wrote of it to Mr. Stewart as “the sunny spot in my whole life, where my memory will always love to bask.” But “the dream,” he added, “was too sweet not to be dashed by the dread of awakening.” The spell was broken when in the middle of March, 1838, he sailed in the Windsor Castle for England.
The interest created by his romantic expedition spread to the other side of the Atlantic. A grotesque narrative, published in the New York Sun for September, 1835, of lunar discoveries made at the Cape with the combined aid of the twenty-foot reflector and the Drummond limelight, was eagerly read and believed by thousands, was reprinted, re-circulated, and re-read. Nor were common gulls the only victims to the hoax. The truth of the story was gravely debated by the Paris Academy of Sciences.
Herschel’s home-coming was a triumph. He was overwhelmed with applause and gratulation. His fellow-countrymen offered him what compensation they could for the disappearance from his horizon of the Southern Cross. He was created a baronet at the Queen’s Coronation, received an honorary degree of D.C.L. at Oxford in 1839, and was offered, but declined, reimbursement from the Treasury for the entire cost of his trip. He peremptorily refused as well to represent the University of Cambridge in Parliament, or to be nominated for the Presidentship of the Royal Society. His utmost desire was for a quiet and laborious life. A banquet, however, given in honour of his return, June 15, 1838, could not be shunned; the less so that the celebration had a typical character. “In honouring a man,” Sir William Hamilton said, in proposing his health, “we honour science too.” For “the cultivators and lovers of Science have chosen Herschel for their chief—say, rather, have as such received him by inheritance.”
CHAPTER IX.
LIFE AT COLLINGWOOD.
Herschel’s career as an observing astronomer came to a virtual end with his departure from the Cape. He was then forty-six, two years younger than his father when he began his course of prodigious activity at Slough. Sir William’s craving to see and to know was insatiable; Sir John’s was appeased by the accomplishment of one grand enterprise. His was a many-sided mind; dormant interests of sundry kinds revived on the first opportunity; new ones sprang up; and curiosity to interrogate the skies ceased to “prick the sides of his intent.” So the instruments taken down at Feldhausen in 1838 were not remounted in England; and their owner is never again recorded to have used a telescope. One cannot but regret that, in the plenitude of his powers, and instructed by rare experience, he should have put by his weapons of discovery.[H] The immense stock of observations with which they had furnished him remained, it is true, in their primitive, rough-hewn state; and he may have considered that wise husbandry required him to save one harvest before planting another. This, at any rate, was the course that he pursued.