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But another pain was added to that of this feeling of terrible darkness. From morning until morning it ever lived on, it never left him, it ate into his very heart. This pain was jealousy, jealousy that young Herschel could perfect and complete his work.

Only a few more days and the work would be finished, that work which was life to Herschel. This day the blind man seemed more impatient than usual; the reading hour was come; Georgina stood gazing silently into the street. Herschel's. step was heard coming up the stairs, though slower than usual; he entered the room with a face pale as death, and in a mechanical way exclaimed, "Thornton, I have some advice to ask from you, some one has stolen my instrument.”

He passed Georgina without seeing her, and seated himself opposite Thornton. "Stolen," repeated Thornton, and an expression like sunshine passed over his face. "When?"

"I do not know, I worked at it for the last time yesterday evening; since which I have not seen it. I only missed it an hour since."

"Have you searched well for it everywhere ?"

"No corner has remained unsearched, the good landlady has turned everything topsy-turvy; but all in vain."

"Do you think about me," she hurriedly replied, "that is nothing; but we must have your instrument back at any cost."

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Now, then help me to find it." "I will."

"Tell me, do you not think it possible that your father-out of fun" "No, no; that cannot be. I cannot once remember having heard my father joke. I think it would frighten me to hear him do so."

"Then, let me go. God bless you!" Georgina gazed after Herschel, holding herself by the banister. There she stood; she knew nothing, felt nothing, did not see it becoming darker and darker; did not feel herself carried away by two strong hands, and only awoke to consciousness to hear Martha whispering in her ear: "Ah! you foolish little thing, why are you so grieved? He cannot go to London now."

The lost instrument was sought for everywhere, but nowhere could it be found. A strict investigation took place concerning it. Even the blind man was cross-examined, but all to no purpose. There were simple folk who felt convinced that a certain personage with cloven feet had whisked it away, and carried it to his dark castle to see the stars with.

Leeds had now lost all attraction for

"It must have been a clever thief! Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel; he had But surely it was not finished."

"Do you not think that some one may, perhaps, have taken it away in-fun ?"

"No one dare play tricks with such things. I would have killed the man who would have taken it out of my sight for even one hour. Think of all the labor which you have bestowed upon that instrument."

"Give me your advice, what shall I do?"

"Go to the magistrate," replied the old man, coldly and harshly.

Mechanically, Herschel rose and left the room, without a word. As he went down-stairs, he felt a soft hand laid on his shoulder. Georgina stood before him. She trembled on attempting to speak; but no word could she utter.

Notwithstanding his own excitement, he perceived her agitation, and taking her hand said, "Do not grieve so much about it, Georgina, we may find it. You will make yourself ill."

lost all trust in its inhabitants, and he hailed as a gift from heaven the position of organist at Halifax which was now offered to him. He had never been at Thornton's since that eventful night. A strange feeling prevented him going there. Martha now never came to dust his room. Herschel contented himself with writing a few affectionate and grateful words of farewell to Georgina, and then shook the dust of Leeds from off his feet.

A year had scarcely elapsed since the "handsome music master" had left Leeds, when a very sad occurrence took place there. The poor little Georgina had been found, one morning, drowned in the Aire. Shortly after this had happened, an old woman had appeared before the magistrate, to accuse herself as a "thief" and a "murderer." She stated that it was she who had stolen the instrument from Herschel, and that then she had thrown it into the Aire. Martha-for it was shebeing asked why she had done so, obsti

nately refused to answer, but became more and more excited, lamenting over her darling Georgina, "who had been drowned looking for that instrument, because she had promised Herschel to find it for him; and the fairies had pointed out the spot to the poor child, but the darling had bent too low, and had so been drowned. And, sure, the instrument had been stolen for the best; but, alas! it did not keep them together." And such was the burden of poor Martha's story. She was kept a long time in prison; and, after she was released, her face was never again seen in Leeds.

The blind Thornton lived for many years after in the family of his kind-hearted landlady, whose youngest son, a lame lad, used to read for him daily; but there was no tear shed for Thornton, when he was found dead one morning in his attic.

Notwithstanding the loss of his instrument, and the disappointment of not get ting to London-notwithstanding all his frustrated hopes, Herschel became that

celebrated astronomer with whose name all the world is familiar.

In the year 1774, Herschel had discovered by the reflector, which he had himself invented, the ring of Saturn and the satellites of Jupiter. He also published his calculations of the altitude of the moon. Five years later, on the 15th of March, 1781, which happened to be the thirty-first anniversary of his dear sister Caroline's birth, Herschel discovered a new planet. That planet is known best by the name of Uranus, but he called it the Georgium Sidus.

Was it in honor of King George III. of England (as the English believe), or was it in memory of the little Georgina, that the ex-music master named his planet? Who can tell?

King George gave Herschel a kingly recompense. Herschel was no longer a poor man. At Slough, near Windsor, in his quiet retreat with the young wife who adored him, he carried on his scientific studies without cares and without interruptions.

Cornhill Magazine.
LIFE IN MARS.

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most favorable conditions, and the enormous dimensions of his belts render them very obvious and very beautiful features for the scrutiny of the telescopist. But then he is some 370 millions of miles from us at such a time, whereas Mars, when most favorably placed for telescopic study, is but 37 millions of miles away. A square mile on the surface of Mars would appear, a hundred times larger than a square mile on the surface of Jupiter, supposing both planets studied when at their nearest. It is clear, then, that, as respects surface details, Mars is examined under much more favorable conditions than the giant planet Jupiter.

Ir may prove interesting to consider few of the facts which astronomers have taught us about the planet of war. For of all the planets, he is the one they can study best. He does not, indeed, come so near to us as Venus, nor does he, in the telescope, present so noble an appear ance as Jupiter. Venus outshines him in the heavens, and Jupiter seems to show more interesting details in the telescopic field. Yet we see Mars, in reality, far better than either of those two planets. If ever we are to recognize the signs of life in any orb of those which people space, it will be in Mars that such signs will be first traced. As Venus comes near to us she assumes the form of the crescent But here the question is naturally sugmoon; we have but a fore-shortened view gested whether our own moon, which is of a portion of her illuminated hemisphere, but a quarter of a million of miles from and her intensely bright light defeats the us, ought not first to be examined for scrutiny of the most skilful observer. At signs of life, or, at least, of being fitted for the time of her nearest approach, she is the support of life. When the telescope lost wholly to our view in the splendor was first invented, it is certain that astroof the solar rays, her unilluminated or night nomers were more hopeful of recognizing hemisphere being directed also towards such signs in the moon than in any other celestial body. As telescopes of greater and greater power were constructed, our

us.

With Jupiter, the case is different. When at his nearest he is seen under

satellite was searched with a more and more eager scrutiny. And many a long year elapsed before astronomers would accept the conclusion that the moon's surface is wholly unfitted for the support of any of those forms of life with which we are familiar upon earth. That the belief in lunar men prevailed in the popular mind long after astronomers had abandoned it, is shown by the eager credulity with which the story of Sir John Herschel's supposed observations of the customs and manners of the Lunarians was accepted even among well-educated men. Who can forget the gravity with which that most amazing hoax was repeated in all quarters? It was, indeed, ingeniously contrived. The anxiety of Sir John Herschel to secure the assistance of King William, and the care with which "our sailor-king" inquired whether the interests of nautical astronomy would be advanced by the proposed inquiries; the plausible explanation of the mode of observation, depending, we were gravely assured, upon the transfusion of light; the trembling anxiety of Herschel and his fellow-workers as the moment arrived when their search was to commence; the flowers, resembling poppies, which first rewarded their scrutiny; and the final introduction upon the scene of those winged beings-not, strictly speaking, men, nor properly to be called angels-to whom Herschel assigned the generic appellation, Vespertilio Homo, or Bat-men. All these things, and many others equally amusing, were described with marvellous gravity, and with an attention to details reminding one of the descriptions in Gulliver's Travels. One can hardly wonder, then, that the narrative was received in many quarters with unquestioning faith, nor, perhaps, even at the simplicity with which (as Sir John Herschel himself relates) well-meaning persons planned measures for sending missionaries "among the poor benighted Lunarians."

Yet astronomers have long known full certainly that no forms of life such as we are familiar with can exist upon the moon. They know that if our satellite has an atmosphere at all, that atmosphere must be so limited in extent that no creatures we are acquainted with could live in it. They know that she has no oceans, seas, rivers, or lakes, neither clouds nor rains, and that if she had there would be no

winds to waft moisture from place to place, or to cause the clouds to drop fatness upon the lunar fields. They know also that the moon's surface is subjected alternately to a cold far more intense than that which binds our arctic regions in everlasting frost, and to a heat compared with which the fierce noon of a tropical day is as the freshness of a spring morning. They search only over the lunar disk for the signs of volcanic action, feeling well assured that no traces of the existence of living creatures will ever be detected in that desolate orb.

But with Mars the case is far otherwise. All that we have learned respecting this charming planet leads to the conclusion that it is well fitted to be the abode of life. We can trace, indeed, the progress of such changes as we may conceive that the inhabitants of Venus or of Mercury must recognize in the case of our own earth. The progress of summer and winter in the northern and southern halves of the planet, the effects due to the progress of the Martial day, from sunrise to sunset-nay, even hourly changes, corresponding to those which take place in our own skies, as clouds gather over our continents, or fall in rain, or are dissipated by solar heat such signs as these that Mars is a world like ours can be recognized most clearly by all who care to study the planet with a telescope of adequate power.

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As regards the atmosphere of Mars, by the way, the earliest telescopic observers fell into a somewhat strange mistake. For, noticing that stars seemed to disappear from view at some considerable distance from the planet, they assigned to the Martial atmosphere a depth of many hundreds of miles,-we care not to say how many. how many. More careful observation, however, showed that the phenomenon upon which so much stress had been laid was merely optical. Sir J. South and other observers, carefully studying the planet with telescopes of modern construction, have been able to prove abundantly that the atmosphere of Mars has no such abnormal extension as Cassini and others of the earlier telescopists had imagined.

The early observations made on the polar snows of Mars were more trustworthy. Maraldi found that at each of two points nearly opposite to each other

on the globe of the planet, a white spot could be recognized, whose light, indeed, was so brilliant as to far outshine that emitted by the remainder of the disc. The idea that these white spots correspond in any way to the polar snows on our own earth does not seem to have occurred to Maraldi. Yet he made observations which were well calculated to suggest the idea, for he noted that one of the spots had at a certain time diminished greatly in size. Instead, however, of ascribing this change to the progress of the Martial seasons, he was led to the strange conclusion that the white spot was undergoing a process of continuous decrease, and he even announced the date when, as he supposed, it would finally disappear.

No such disappearance took place, however. When Sir W. Herschel began his series of observations upon Mars, more than half a century later, the spots were still there. The energy of our great astronomer did not suffer these striking features to remain long unexamined. Searching, as was his wont, after terrestrial analogies-or, at least, analogies depending on known facts-he was quickly led to associate the white spots with our arctic regions. It would follow, of course, that in the summer months of either Martial hemisphere, the snow cap would be reduced in size, while in the winter it would attain its greatest dimensions. Sir W. Herschel found this to be the case, and he was able to show that the changes which Maraldi had interpreted as suggesting the eventual disappearance of one of the bright spots, were due to the progress of the Martial summer. Precisely as in our summer months, those who voyage across the Atlantic may sail in far higher latitudes than they could safely venture to traverse in winter, so in Mars the polar ice and snow is limited within a far narrower region in summer than in winter.

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most satisfactory manner into each other, will be found full of interest.

We all know that Mars shines with a ruddy light. He is, indeed, far the ruddiest star in the heavens: Aldebaran and Antares are pale beside him. Now, in the telescope the surface of Mars does not appear wholly red. We have seen that at two opposite points his orb exhibits white spots. But, besides these regions, there are others which are not red. Dark spaces are seen, sometimes strangely complicated in figure, which present a wellmarked tinge of greenish blue. Here, then, we have a feature which we should certainly expect to find if the polar spots are really snow-caps; for the existence of water in quantities sufficient to account for snow regions covering many thousand square miles of the surface of Mars would undoubtedly lead us to infer the existence of oceans, and these oceans might be expected to resemble our own oceans in their general tint. According to this view, the dark greenish-blue markings on Mars would come to be regarded as the Martial

seas.

If this be the case, then, we may note in passing that the seas of Mars cover a much smaller proportion of his surface than those of our own earth. The extent of our seas being to that of our continents about the proportion of 11 to 4 in Mars the land and sea surfaces would seem to be nearly equal in extent. The seas in Mars are also very singularly shaped. They run into long inlets and straits; many are bottle or flask shaped-that is, we see a somewhat rounded inland sea connected with what must be called the main ocean by a narrow inlet; and further it would seem as though oceanic communication must be far more complete in Mars (notwithstanding the relative smallness of his ocean surface) than on our own earth. One could travel by sea between all parts of Marswith very few exceptions-the long inlets and the flask-shaped seas breaking up his land surface much more completely than the actual extent of water would lead us to infer. It may be supposed that on the other hand land communication is far more complete in the case of Mars than in that of our own earth. This is, indeed, the case; insomuch that such Martialists as object to sea travelling (and we can scarcely suppose sea-sickness to be a phe. nomenon peculiar to our own earth) may

very readily avoid it, and yet not be debarred from visiting any portion of their miniature world, save one or two extensive islands. Even these are separated by such narrow seas from the neighboring continents, that we may regard it as fairly within the power of the Martial Brunels and Stephensons to bridge over the intervening straits, and so to enable the advocates of land voyaging to visit these portions of their planet. This view is encouraged by the consideration that all engineering operations must be much more readily effected in Mars than on our own earth. The force of gravity is so small at the surface of Mars that a mass which on the earth weighs a pound, would weigh on Mars but about six and a quarter ounces, so that in every way the work of the engineer, and of his ally the spadesman, would be lightened. A being shaped as men are, but fourteen feet high, would be as active as a man six feet high, and many times more powerful. On such a scale, then, might the Martial navvies be built. But that is not all. The soil in which they would work would weigh very much less, mass for mass, than that in which our terrestrial spadesmen labor. So that, be tween the far greater powers of Martial beings, and the far greater lightness of the materials they would have to deal with in constructing roads, canals, bridges, or the like, we may very reasonably conclude that the progress of such labors must be very much more rapid, and their scale very much more important, than in the case of our own earth.

But let us return to our oceans, remembering that at present we have not proved that the dark greenish-blue regions we have called oceans, really consist of water.

It might seem hopeless to inquire whether this is the case. Unless the astronomer could visit Mars and sail upon the Martial seas, he could never learnso at a first view one might fairly judge-whether the dark markings he chooses to call oceans are really so or not.

But he possesses an instrument which can answer even such a question as this. The spectroscope, the ally of the telescope-useless without the latter, but able to tell us much which the most powerful telescope could never reveal--has been called in to solve this special problem. It cannot, indeed, directly answer our question. It cannot so analyze the light from

the greenish markings as to tell us the nature of the material which emits or reflects to us that peculiarly tinted light. But the astronomer and physicist is capable of reasoning as to certain effects which must necessarily follow if the planet of war have oceans and polar snowcaps, and which could not possibly appear if the markings we call oceans were not really so, nor the white spots at the Martial poles really snow-caps. Extensive seas in one part of the planet, and extensive snow regions in another, would imply in a manner there could be no mistaking, that the vapor of water is raised in large quantities from the Martial oceans to be transferred by Martial winds to polar regions, there to fall in snow-showers. It is this aqueous vapor in the Martial atmosphere that the spectroscope can inform us about. Our spectroscopists know quite well what the vapor of water is capable of showing in the rainbow-tinted streak which is called the spectrum. When white light is caused to shine through a sufficient quantity of the vapor of water, the rainbow-tinted streak forming the spectrum of white light is seen to be crossed by certain dark lines, whose position and arrangement there is no mistaking. Now the light we get from Mars is reflected sunlight, but it is sunlight which has been subjected to more than reflection, since it has passed twice through the depths of the Martial atmosphere, first while passing to his surface, and secondly while leaving that surface on its voyage towards ourselves. If that double passage have carried it through the vapor of water, the spectroscope will certainly tell us of the fact.

Let us see how this problem was dealt with by our most skilful spectroscopist, Dr. Huggins, justly called the Herschel of the spectroscope. The following account is an epitome of his own narrative:

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