Your most affectionate aunt,
Car. Herschel.
1824. Her Nephew on the Continent.
FROM J. F. W. HERSCHEL TO MISS HERSCHEL.
Catania (Sicily), July 2, 1824.
Dear Aunt,—
The last time I wrote to you from Slough I little expected that my next would be dated from the foot of Etna—but I mean this to be the farthest point of my wanderings, and from hence to turn my steps northwards. I am not without some hopes that my time will so far serve as to enable me to pay you a visit at Hanover, as I long very much to see you among your and my Hanoverian friends.... My mother will have told you of my arrangements,—of the alteration which my plans of life have undergone (and for which I see every day more reason to be thankful), and of my present excursion, so that the date of this will not surprise you. To-morrow I hope to see the sun set from the top of Etna, and will keep this open to give you an account of my excursion there. Meanwhile let me congratulate you on the good accounts my mother gives me of your present state of health and spirits, the knowledge of which has enabled me to give real pleasure to many who, when they heard I was related to you, enquired with the greatest interest respecting you. Among the rest I may mention M. Arago, of the Observatory at Paris, and M. Fourrier, the secretary of the Institute, who has just been reading the Éloge of my dear father at a meeting of that body, in which I am sure (from the associations I had with him, and the written communications that passed between us on the subject) your own name will stand associated with his in a manner that cannot fail to be gratifying to you. I have not (of course, as I quitted Paris before it was read, or even written) seen it, but the man is of the right sort, and I will endeavour to procure copies of it for you and my uncle. Indeed, at Paris I find (as where do I not find it?) universal justice rendered to my father’s merits, and a degree of admiration excited by the mention of his name that cannot fail to be gratifying to me, as his son. In fact, I find myself received wherever I go by all men of science, for his sake, with open arms, and I find introductions perfectly unnecessary. At Turin I sent up my card to Prof. Plana, of the Observatory, one of the most eminent mathematicians of the age, who received me like a brother, and made my stay at Turin, which I prolonged a week for the sake of his society, very pleasant. He married a niece of Lagrange (not of Lalande), and both he and his wife were full of enquiries about my “celebrated sister,” (for everybody seems to think me your brother, instead of nephew), and made me tell them a thousand particulars about you. The same reception, but, if possible, still more friendly, and the same curiosity (and, I may add, the same mistake) I met with at Modena, from Professor Amici, an artist and a man of science of the first eminence. He is the only man who has, since my father, bestowed great pains on the construction of specula, and I do assure you that his ten-foot telescopes with twelve-inch mirrors are of very extraordinary perfection. Among other of your enquiring friends I should not omit the Abbé Piazzi, whom I found ill in bed at Palermo, and who is a fine respectable old man, though I am afraid not much longer for this world. He remembered you personally, having himself visited Slough.
Naples, Aug. 20th, 1824.—I take the first moment of leisure to proceed with this. I made the ascent of Etna without particular difficulty, though with excessive fatigue. The ascent from Catania is through the village of Nicolosi, about ten miles from Catania, almost every step of which is covered with the tremendous stream of lava which, in 1669, burst from the flanks of the mountain, near Nicolosi, and overwhelmed the city. Here I found a M. Gemellaro, who was so good as to make corresponding observations of the barometer and thermometer during my absence, while his brother observed below at Catania, and I carried up my mountain barometer and other instruments to the summit. From Nicolosi the ascent becomes rugged and laborious, first through a broad belt of fine oak forest, which encircles the mountain like a girdle about its middle, and affords some beautiful romantic scenery—when this is passed we soon reach the limits of vegetation, and a long desolate scorched slope, knee-deep in ashes, extends for about five miles to a little hut, where I passed the night (a glorious starlight one) with the barometer at 21·307 in.—and next morning mounted the crater by a desperate scramble up a cone of lava and ashes, about 1,000 feet high. The sunrise from this altitude, and the view of Sicily and Calabria, which is gradually disclosed, is easier conceived than described. On the highest point of the crater I was enveloped in suffocating sulphurous vapours, and was glad enough to make my observation (bar. 21·400) and get down. By this the altitude appears to be between 10 and 11,000 feet. I reached Catania the same night, almost dead with the morning’s scramble and the dreadful descent of near thirty miles, where the mules (which can be used for a considerable part of the way) could scarce keep their feet.
Florence, Aug. 16th, 1824.—In the hurry and bustle of travelling one is obliged to write by snatches when one can.... I hope to hear from you at all events when I reach England if I should not see you first, of which I begin now to have serious doubts, having been so terribly retarded in my Sicilian journey, and at Naples, on my return, by the illness of a friend.
Your affectionate nephew,