the whole apparatus was fixed except under his eye.  “I have seen him,” writes his sister, “lying stretched many an hour in the burning sun, across the top beam, whilst the iron-work for the various motions [of the great telescope] was being fixed.”  At one time no fewer than twenty-four men, in relays of twelve each, were engaged in grinding and polishing day and night; and Herschel never left them, taking his food without allowing himself time to sit down to table.

“In August 1787,” writes the diarist, “an additional man-servant was engaged, who would be wanted at the handles of the motions of the forty-foot,”—­that is, to raise or lower it, or move it from side to side, as might be required,—­“for which the mirror in the beginning of July was so far finished as to be used for occasional observations on trial.  Such a person was also necessary for showing the telescopes to the curious strangers, as by their numerous visits my brother and myself had for some time past been much incommoded.  In consequence of an application made through Sir J. Banks to the king, my brother had in August a second sum of L2000 granted for completing the forty-foot, and L200 yearly for the expense of repairs; such as ropes, painting, &c., and the keep and clothing of the men who attended at night.  A salary of L50 a year was also settled on me, as an assistant to my brother.  A great uneasiness was by this means removed from my mind; for though I had generally (and especially during the last busy six years) been almost the keeper of my brother’s purse, with a charge to provide for my personal wants, only annexing in my accounts the memorandum ‘For Car.’ to the sums so laid out.  When cast up, they hardly amounted to seven or eight pounds per year since the time we had left Bath.  Nothing but bankruptcy had all the while been running through my silly head, when looking at the sums of my weekly accounts, and knowing they could be but trifling in comparison with what had been and had yet to be paid in town.  I will only add, that from this time the utmost activity prevailed to forward the completion of the forty-foot.”

In recognition of his scientific triumphs, the honorary degree of LL.D was conferred upon Herschel, in 1786, by the University of Oxford.  They were triumphs that well merited such a recognition.  He had already made some important observations on the nature of double stars, on the dimensions of the telescopic planets, and had begun his famous investigations into the composition of the nebulae,—­those clusters of stars and nebulous matter which had previously proved such a problem to astronomers.  The remarkable phenomenon of a periodical change of intensity in certain stars, which wax and wane in radiance like a revolving light, had also excited his attention.  Further, he had entered upon the experiments which ultimately showed that the Sun positively moves; that in this, as in other respects, the magnificent orb of day must be ranged among the stars; that the apparently inextricable irregularities of numerous sidereal proper motions arise in great part from the displacement of the Solar System; that, in short, the point of space toward which Earth and its sister planets are annually advancing, is situated in the constellation of Hercules.