Transportation under a modified Assign- forced ever since 1803 by the codes of Ausment System, ought surely to be reconsi- tria, Sardinia, and Baden; and, it seems, dered. There is copious evidence that it with excellent results. Let the English was too hastily abandoned. It is by far thief too be made to know that, besides the the least costly to the government, and punishment due to the moral offence as exmight be made highly beneficial to the cri- piatory, he must bear the burden of repaminal. In this last view Mr. Baker strong-ration also. In France the thief generally ly urges that the punishment of transpor- buries his stolen money, and, if convicted tation should be extended to a greater and sent to prison, returns after a few number of offences. The criminal popula- years to his treasure, increased by his earntion among us is well known; character, ings during detention. With us the receivtherefore, as some of the authorities in the er of stolen goods makes over his spoil to Report have suggested, as well as the na- relatives, who are often rich; and thus esture of the act, should determine the de-caping forfeiture, it is remitted to him gree of the punishment. It might be compe- after he has been transported at once tent to the executive either to give a con- converting the convict into the Australian vict in the first instance all the chances be- capitalist. Civil restitution is perfectly longing to such an educational captivity as feasible in all this class of criminals. In that of Pentonville, or at once to transport others of less capital, either the guilty perhim to a colony: even in the latter case the son will disgorge, or, if he have spent the man is rescued from the associations and money, his friends will come forward to temptations of his old career. Mr. Baker his aid. The seeming injustice of thus has no doubt that the cost both of the pri- mulcting innocent connexions is to be met son here and the voyage out would be glad- by its not being compulsory, and by the ly repaid by our colonists, on receiving an right it gives the reliever to control the assignment for two years, in two yearly in- man in future. The absolute insolvent, stalments after which period and pay- who cannot otherwise repair the loss occaments the convict would have acquired his pardon.

sioned by his depredations, should do so by the sweat of his brow. Until he has done that, he can have no right to consider his labor as his own.

As to means subsidiary to and complementary to the Separate System, there is among the works heading this article one Education has now most wisely been which deserves the most serious considera- viewed in connexion with its bearings on tion, that of M. Bonneville, not only from crime. We have seen what it does for the its display of great practical knowledge, convict of Pentonville. A wise system

but from the curious similarity of views and would not only furnish principles of conplans with those elicited from our own duct, but hold out some assured prizes for judges by Lord Brougham's Committee. which all could contend (and all bettered We would particularly call attention to M. for the conflict), and which some would atBonneville's chapter on restitution. Lord tain. Our forefathers understood this: Denman had arrived at the same point :- their foundations and grammar-schools car"I would (he says), make restitution of ried the boy into manhood, and furnishthe thing stolen, or its money-value, a ed him with the prospect of a competence. part of the sentence. This principle These have, from the rise in the value of might be usefully adopted in all cases property, attracted the cupidity of the of loss by theft or fraud." It has been en- richer classes, who have in too many cases usurped the advantages meant for their

vict are found very insufficient, especially since the humble brethren. Our parish schools, exinvention of railways. The residence of the libe- cellent though they be, give no such hope rated convicts is found to be a permanent danger to as lighted up the vista of a life from youth society. The system of imprisonment (reclusion), or of the Bagnes, or Travaux forcés, is of little to old age in our monastic institutions. effect in reforming or even in deterring from a re- The charity-boy must shift for himself-he petition of the offences punished, and the propor- may or may not succeed in the scramble of tion of those recommitted for new offences is not life-but there is no hand to help him on less than thirty per cent. Thus, of about 90,000 but his own. persons tried in the whole kingdom, above 15,000, A broader charity is wanted or one-sixth of the whole number, had already suffered imprisonment, to say nothing of the corrupt- A very large annual surplus is left, after paying effects produced on the community even by ing all the expenses of our recruiting department those who escaped a second punishment."-Second from moneys raised by the poor relations of soldiers Report on Criminal Law, p. 7. for the purchase of their relatives' discharge.

a charity founded not in the despairs but the vicious? You have begun to provide in the hopes of our nature-which will for your soldiers in your colonies, and the cheer the heart in the heat and struggle of view of the few thus cared for animates and the battle, and will not wait to open for strengthens the whole class. Extend the disappointment and decrepitude the asylum principle to the poorer classes generally, and the almshouse. Among our liberties and a very few prizes thus offered to those give these the Liberty of Hoping. Can who will qualify for it may do more to pothere be no un-penal Parkhurst for the off-pularize education than any mechanism of spring of Honest poverty? Is that splen- Bell or Lancaster. did institution to be the appanage only of

From the North British Review.

SIR JOHN HERSCHEL'S ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS.

Results of Astronomical Observations made during the years 1834, 5, 6, 7, 8, at the Cape of Good Hope, being the completion of a Telescopic Survey of the whole surface of the visible Heavens, commenced in 1825. By Sir JOHN HERSCHEL, Bart., K.H., D.C.L., F.R.S. London and Edinburgh.

N the history of Astronomical Discovery does appear we watch its phases and its there shine no brighter names than those of mutations with a corresponding interest. Sir William and Sir John Herschel-the fa- The case of the two Herschels is a remarkther and the son. It is rare that the intel-able one, and may appear an exception to lectual mantle of the parent lights upon the our general law. The father, however, was child. By no culture, however skilful, and not called to the survey of the heavens, till no anxieties, however earnest, can we trans- he had passed the middle period of life, and mit to our successors the qualities or the it was but a just arrangement, that the son in capacities of the mind. The eagle eye, the his youth and manhood, should continue and active limb, the giant frame, and the "form complete the labors of his sire. The records divine," the gifts of our mortal being, are of Astronomy do not emblazon a more glofrequently conveyed by natural descent, and rious day than that, in which the semidiurnal may be numbered even among the rights of arc of the father was succeeded by the primogeniture; but the higher developments semidiurnal arc of the son. No sooner had of reason and fancy, the bright coruscations the evening luminary disappeared amid the of the soul, have never been ranked among gorgeous magnificence of the west, than the the claims or the accidents of birth. The morning star arose, bright and cloudless in gifts of fortune which we inherit or acquire, its appointed course.

*

have been placed more immediately at our It has long been a subject of regret to disposal, and in many cases have been the astronomical world, that in our language handed down unimpaired to distant genera- no extended account has yet been published tions; but Providence has reserved for its of the life and discoveries of Sir William own distribution, those transcendental Herschel. With the exception of a short powers which give omnipotence to genius, Biographical Memoir, and a popular aband constitute its possessor the high priest of stract of his astronomical observations on nature, or the vicegerent of Heaven. In a the nebula and double stars, and on the bodestiny so lofty, the father and the son have dies of our own system,† no suitable account been rarely associated; and in the very few of his labors has appeared even in our larger cases in which a joint commission has been treatises on astronomy, and general readers issued to them, it has generally been to have, therefore, no adequate idea of the work in different spheres, or at different levels. In the universe of mind, the phenomenon of a double star is more rare than its prototype in the firmament, and when it

*

Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, April, 1823, Vol. VIII., pp. 209, 226.

+ Edinburgh Encyclopædia, Art. Astronomy.

value and extent of his discoveries.* Though Sir William Herschel was born in the city his scientific studies did not, as we have al- of Hanover on the 15th. November 1738. ready stated, commence till he had reached His father, who was a professor of music, the middle period of life, yet he pursued educated his five sons in the same art; but them, under difficulties of no ordinary kind, William, who was the second, after exerciswith all the ardor of youthful devotion, and ing his profession for about five years in with that dauntless and indefatigable perse- Hanover, resolved to push his fortune in verance, which never fails of success. England, where he arrived about the end of Every step, indeed, of his astronomical career the year 1759. Although he was enthusiwas marked with discoveries equally inte- astically devoted to his profession, and purresting and unexpected. New planets and sued it with such success, as to draw from it new sa ellites, were successively added to an income considerably above his wants, his our own solar system. Thousands of nebula ardent mind was occasionally devoted to and double stars were discovered in the side- still higher objects. When he was resident real firmament, and in those remote regions at Halifax he acquired, by his own applicaof space where the imagination had hitherto tion, a considerable knowledge of mathemascarcely dared to wander, and where the tics, and having studied astronomy and stars in countless multitudes seemed to be optics, in the popular writings of Ferguson, fixed in absolute immobility, the physical he was anxious to witness with his own astronomer was directed to new systems of eyes the wonders of the planetary system. worlds,-binary, ternary, and multiple, Having received from a friend the loan of a exhibiting the general phenomena of annual telescope, two feet in focal length, he directand diurnal rotation, and rendering it pro- ed it to the heavens, and was so delighted bable that the law of gravitation extended to with the actual sight of phenomena, which the remotest corners of space. His inven- he had previously known only from books, tion of instruments, and of new methods of that he commissioned a friend to purchase observation, was no less surprising than the for him in London a telescope with a high wonders which they disclosed. Obstacles magnifying power. Fortunately for science, that other men had found insuperable he the price of such an instrument greatly exspeedily surmounted. The telescope which ceeded his means, and he immediately reGalileo held in his hand as a toy, became solved to construct a telescope with his own under Sir William Herschel's direction a stu- hands. After encountering the difficulties pendous machine, which supported the astro- which every amateur at first experiences in nomer himself, and even his friends, and the casting, grinding, and polishing of metallic which mechanical power was requisite even specula for reflecting telescopes, he completThere was in short no continuity ed in 1776 a reflecting instrument five feet between his inventions and discoveries, and in focal length, with which he was able to those of preceding astronomers. He ad- observe the ring of Saturn and the satellites ventured upon a flight which left them at and belts of Jupiter. This telescope was an immeasurable distance, and he penetrat- completed when he resided at Bath, where he ed into regions where the ablest of his successors have had some difficulty in following him.

to move.

acquired by degrees, and at his leisure hours, that practical knowledge of optics and mechanics which was necessary for such a task. As "the telescopic survey of the whole His experience in this scientific art was of the surface of the sidereal heavens," contained most remarkable kind. He had constructed in the great work of Sir John Herschel, for himself several two-feet, five feet, sevenwhich is now before us, is a continuation feet, ten-feet, and twenty-feet Newtonian and completion of the labors of his father, telescopes, besides others of the Gregorian we shall endeavor to give our readers a form of eight-inches, twelve-inches, two-feet, brief and general account of the disco- three-feet, five-feet, and ten-feet focal length. veries of Sir William, interspersed with His way of executing these instruments, at a few notices of the principal events of his this time, when the direct method, of giving the figure of any one of the conic sections

life. A very interesting and valuable account of the to specula, was yet unknown to him, was to Life and Works of Sir W. Herschel, by M. Arago, cast many mirrors of each sort, to grind and was published in the Annuaire for 1842. It contains polish them as accurately as he could, and a full and critical analysis of his discoveries, and then, after selecting and preserving the best is distinguished by the eloquence and learning which characterize the writings of that illustrious of them for use, he put the rest aside to be philosopher. re-polished. In this way he executed no

Vol. XIII. No. IV.

30

fewer than two hundred specula seven feet In these observations, which are not of in focal length, one hundred and fifty ten very great importance, Mr. Herschel meafeet in focal length, and about eighty twenty sured with a micrometer, the distance of the feet in focal length, besides a great number periodical star from a very obscure telescopic of specula of the Gregorian form, and of the star which preceded it, and he used a power construction of Dr. Smith's reflecting micro- of 449, his usual power being only 222.* scope. His mechanical labors were con- This paper was accompanied by another, temporaneous with his optical ones. He in- read at the same meeting, "On the Mounvented a great number of stands for these tains of the Moon," in which he draws the telescopes, contriving and delineating them conclusion, that the height of the Lunar of different forms, and executing the most Mountains has, in general, been greatly promising of the designs. "To these overrated, and that, with the exception of a labors," he himself informs us, we "owe few (11 to 13 miles high), "the generality my seven-feet Newtonian telescope stand, do not exceed half a mile in their perpendicuwhich was brought to its present convenient lar elevation."†

construction about seventeen years ago (in The next communication of our author 1778), a description and engraving of which to the Royal Society, was a letter to Dr. I intend to take some future opportunity of William Watson, entitled, "Observations presenting to the Royal Society. In the on the Rotation of the Planets round their year 1781, I began also to construct a thirty-axes, made with a view to determine whefeet aerial reflector; and after having invented ther the Earth's diurnal motion is perfectly and executed a stand for it, I cast the mirror equable." In these observations, by which which was moulded up so as to come out Jupiter's diurnal rotation was found to be thirty-six inches in diameter. The compo- 9h 51' 19", and that of Mars, 24h 39′ 23′′, sition of my metal being a little too brittle, Mr.Herschel employed a twenty-feet, a tenit cracked in the cooling. I cast it a second feet, and a seven-feet Newtonian reflector ; time, but here the furnace which I had built and he obtained his time with a brass in my house for the purpose gave way, and quadrant of two feet radius, carrying a telethe metal ran into the fire."*

scope magnifying forty times, and by two very good time-pieces, one having a steel pendulum rod, and the other a compound pendulum of brass and iron.

Furnished with instruments so numerous and powerful, Mr. Herschel had now the means of surveying the heavens, which were possessed by no other astronomer in In the year 1781, Mr. Herschel was any of the fixed observatories of Europe. engaged in a series of observations "On the With the earnings of a profession not the Parallax of the Fixed Stars," in which he most lucrative, and by the energy of his own used magnifying powers of 227, 460, 932, mind, and the labor of his own hands, had 1536, and 2010, and on the 13th March, this private individual done more for the when he was examining the small stars in prosecution of astronomical discovery than all the neighborhood of H Geminorum, he disthe sovereigns of Europe combined; and covered what he thought to be a comet, and many years had not elapsed before he had after observing it till the 19th of April, he outstripped in discovery men educated in all communicated" An account of a Comet" to the mysteries of science, and supported by the Royal Society on the 26th of the same all the munificence of princes. The earliest of his observations which he deemed worthy This very extraordinary star, known by the of being published, were made between 1776 and 1780, and related to the Periodical star o, in Collo Ceti. They were communicated to the Royal Society by Dr. Watson, junior, of Bath, and read on the 11th May

1783.

This star was discovered in 1596 by Fabricius, and was described as appearing and disappearing periodically seven times in six years (its period being three hundred and thirty-four days), continuing in the greatest lustre for fifteen days.

No account of the aerial stand here mentioned, or of the stand of the seven-feet reflector, was ever published by their inventor.

name of Mera has a reddish yellow color, which has Captain Smith always found it to be reddish when been supposed to vary with its magnitude; but viewed through his telescope. It has a companion, distant 116 seconds, of a pale lilac color, whose angle of position is 88.9'; its variations being place 2h 11' 16" R. ascension, and 3° 42′ 39′′ S. defrom the second magnitude to invisibility, and its clination. Count De Hahn thought he saw another companion. Sir W. Herschel conjectured that a rapid change had taken place between the two stars; but Captain Smith is inclined to think that there has been little or no movement beyond what may be ascribed to the proper motions of o Ceti in space.-See SMITH's Celestial Cycle, Vol. II, pp. 59, 60.

t It has been since proved that there are several mountains nearly twice the height of Mont Blanc.

month. In this paper, he gives its distance planet or comet upon, or near, lucid discs from certain telescopic stars in its vicinity, seen by the other eye, he found the diaand by means of a micrometer for taking the meter of the Georgium Sidus to be four angle of position, described at the end of seconds; and from the distance of the planet the paper, he obtained measures of its angle from the Sun, as calculated and sent to him of position with the same fixed star. Al- by La Lande (18-913-that of the Earth though M. Messier, to whom Mr. Herschel being 1), he found its diameter to be 4.454 communicated his observations, and who times that of the earth. had with some difficulty observed it, speaks

The researches of Mr. Herschel on the of it in his reply as a star or a comet, yet Parallax of the Fixed Stars, which we have neither of them suspected it to be a planet. already mentioned, were chiefly of a specuMr. Herschel, indeed, himself speaks of it lative nature, and the result of them was as "a moving star, which he was happy to published in the Philosophical Transacsurrender to the care of the Astronomer tions for 1782. The method first pointed Royal and others."

out by Galileo, and followed by Flamstead Before the close of the year 1781, Mr. and Bradley, of measuring the zenith disHerschel, in a letter to Sir Joseph Banks, tances of two stars, was regarded by Mr. announced to the Royal Society, that, "by Herschel as liable to various sources of the observations of the most eminent astro- error; and he was of opinion that though nomers in Europe, the new star which he Bradley regarded the maximum parallax as had the honor of pointing out to them in not exceeding 1", yet "the stars of the first March 1781, is a primary planet of our magnitude might still have a parallax of Solar System;" and in gratitude to his several seconds." The method which he Majesty George III., " to whose unlimited substituted, and which had been originally bounty he owed everything," he gave it suggested by Galileo, in his Systema Costhe name of the GEORGIUM SIDUS, a compli- micum, consisted in employing two stars as ment which astronomers in every part of near to each other as possible, and differing the world have refused to pay. La Lande, as much in magnitude as could be found, and others, gave it the more appropriate and determining their exact place at the two name of Herschel; but the uniformity of opposite points of the earth's annual orbit. astronomical nomenclature demanded an- The parallax of the stars was then to be other name, and the appellation of Uranus, computed by a theory founded on probasanctioned by more recent discussions, was bilities, and involving the two postulates: given to the new planet. 1. That the stars are, "one with another,

This important discovery, by which the about the size of the sun; and, 2. That limits of the Solar System were extended to the difference of their apparent magnitudes nearly double their former amount, was is owing to their different distances;" so hailed by the astronomers of every country, that a star of the second, third, or fourth and the highest expectations were formed magnitude is two, three, or four times as of the future labors of Mr. Herschel. The far off as one of the first. This method, Royal Society of London elected him a ingenious as it is, has not led to any results Fellow of their body. His Majesty George on which confidence can be placed. The III. did himself the honor of granting him a postulates which it involves were contrary salary of £300 a year, so as to enable him to all analogy, and have been completely to devote his time to astronomical research; disproved by the only measures of parallax and all the scientific bodies in Europe suc- which have been recently obtained. But cessively admitted him into the list of their like many other speculations, the attempt members.

to prove or to apply them led to results With the fine telescopes in his possession, more important than those which they Mr. Herschel began in October 1781, to directly contemplated. In searching for make a series of observations on the light, double stars suitable for his purpose, Mr. diameter, and magnitude of the new planet; Herschel was led to the formation of those and in his paper on this subject read at the magnificent catalogues of double stars by Royal Society on the 7th December 1782, which he enriched astronomy, and those he described the dark and lucid disc and interesting results respecting the movements periphery micrometers by which these obser- and periods of binary systems, which now vations were made. With this apparatus, form the most interesting portion of sidereal by means of which one eye, looking into the astronomy.

telescope, throws the magnified image of a

To us who are in possession of the