son and daughter of Adam. Who of us is exempt from sickness and pain? Here is a discovery (perhaps yet only in its infancy) which promises support to the trembling flesh in an hour of deep anguish, from the throes of nature, or the operations of surgery. If it were only for avoiding the agony of losing teeth, which begins before we have fully passed through the pain of their growth, and continues with us (painful warning!) till we lie down in the dust-this discovery ought to be looked to with the greatest interest by every one of our read guished men of his own and other countries, is, no doubt, the most valuable document in being, and a richer legacy to his children than the ample fortune he leaves. This fortune is not the result of a niggardly economy, (for Mr. Adams always spent more than his official income,) but of two successful speculations, and a great rise in value of his patrimonial estates. Mr. Adams leaves also copies of every letter he ever wrote, and amongst his voluminous productions are most able eulogies on Madison, Monroe and Lafayette. His own eulogy should be pronounced before our owners. It is considered, in Europe, the greatest dislegislature, at its present session, by a statesman covery of the age we live in. and scholar of as industrious life, pure patriotism, and unspotted private character as his own, the president of Harvard University. Mr. Adams was a devoted and true disciple of Jesus Christ, whose gospel was his daily study, and his life was illustrated by every Christian virtue. His letters to his son and his lecture on faith cast a blast on infidelity, and breathed into the Christian the breath of life. Mr. Adams leaves a widow, to whom he was married in London, in 1797. She was the daughter of Col. Joshua Johnson, then consul at London, and the niece of his brother, Gov. Johnson of Maryland, a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Mr. Adams leaves also his youngest son, Charles F., who married a daughter of Hon. Peter C. Brooks of Boston, and who has several children; and the widow of his eldest son, John, (who is also the niece of Mrs. Adams,) with one or two children. He owned and occupied the mansion house of his father in Quincy. In the halls of congress, where his career closed, he was looked upon with veneration. There he devoted himself to the promotion of liberty and the defence of the oppressed and enslaved, to wrest the hand of violence and still the iron voice of war. In the midst of his duties the shaft of death was sped, and his earthly career terminated. It was the death, of all others, he would have chosen. Such a life was worthy of such a death, such a triumph over the grave, and such an entrance to eternity. On the eve of the day consecrated by the birth of the Father of his Country, he receives the summons to meet him in the regions of endless felicity. No passion fierce, no low desire, Has quenched the radiance of the flame; Back to its God the living fire Reverts, unclouded as it came. CORRESPONDENCE. MANY of our readers will be disappointed at seeing so large a part of this number occupied by a single subject. We are free to acknowledge that it is not altogether satisfactory to us; but we ask the general reader to be patient while we urge a few arguments in favor of our course in the matter. In the first place, the subject is, above all things pertaining to this life only, (if, indeed, all matters do not connect us with eternity,), important to every In the second place, while royal societies and scientific academies, all over Europe, are seeking to determine to which of the American claimants belongs the honor of this discovery-so that they may rank him with Jenner, as one of the great benefactors of his species-the directors of the hospital in which it was brought to the test, have made an official report, in which they endeavor, so far as is in their power, to settle that question. Here, where the discovery was proclaimed, where the claimants reside, where all the facts are best known-here, if anywhere, and now, if ever, can the rival claims be justly weighed, and that evidence be put forth upon which the decision of posterity will be founded. Without previous acquaintance with either of the parties, we will confess that our sympathies are with the man who has in some degree (and only temporarily, we are confident) impaired both his health and his fortune by working out this discovery. The decision in his favor is made by parties whose prepossessions must have inclined them all the other way. As an important occurrence of the Living Age, it is appropriate to our name and objects, to publish to the world, in an authentic and convenient shape, what has thus happened in the city of our own residence; and there are many reasons why the whole affair should be compressed into a single number. It can thus be more conveniently spread over the face of the whole earth; and it may thus be the means of introducing our journal to thousands who would otherwise never have known it. This last argument will, we are sure, be weighty in the minds of all to whom the growth and development of this enterprise is desirable. It will be interesting information to many of our readers, that the gentleman whose name appears on the first page of this number, and who is now a member of the bar in Boston, is the same person who some years ago published a very different chapter of his own experience and travels, under the title of Two Years before the Mast; a work which we think made a life-long impression upon every one who read it, and which has probably, by turning the attention of many thousands of Americans towards California, hastened, in some degree, the occupation of the solitary shores of the Pacific. A few pages to the memory of a great man, to whom we have private as well as public obligations, are all that remained to us in this number. A History of the Ether Discovery — Report of the Trustees of the Massachusetts General Hospital- PROSPECTUS.-This work is conducted in the spirit of Littell's Museum of Foreign Literature, (which was favorably received by the public for twenty years,) but as it is twice as large, and appears so often, we not only give spirit and freshness to it by many things which were excluded by a month's delay, but while thus extending our scope and gathering a greater and more attractive variety, are able so to increase the solid and substantial part of our literary, historical, and political harvest, as fully to satisfy the wants of the American reader. 529 571 575 now becomes every intelligent American to be informed of the condition and changes of foreign countries. And this not only because of their nearer connection with ourselves, but because the nations seem to be hastening, through a rapid process of change, to some new state of things, which the merely political prophet cannot compute or foresee. Geographical Discoveries, the progress of Colonization, (which is extending over the whole world,) and Voyages and Travels, will be favorite matter for our selections; and, in general, we shad systematically and very ully acquaint our readers with the great department of Foreign affairs, without entirely neglecting our own. The elaborate and stately Essays of the Edinburgh, Quarterly, and other Reviews; and Blackwood's noble criticisms on Poetry, his keen political Commentaries, highly wrought Tales, and vivid descriptions of rural and While we aspire to make the Living Age desirable to mountain Scenery; and the contributions to Literature, all who wish to keep themselves informed of the rapid History, and Common Life, by the sagacious Spectator, progress of the movement-to Statesmen, Divines, Lawthe sparkling Examiner, the judicious Athenæum, the vers, and Physicians-to men of business and men of busy and industrious Literary Gazette, the sensible and leisure-it is still a stronger object to make it attractive comprehensive Britannia, the sober and respectable Chris- and useful to their Wives and Children. We believe that tian Observer; these are intermixed with the Military we can thus do some good in our day and generation; and and Naval reminiscences of the United Service, and with hope to make the work indispensable in every well-inthe best articles of the Dublin University, New Monthly, formed family. We say indispensable, because in this Fraser's, Tail's, Ainsworth's, Hood's, and Sporting Mag-day of cheap literature it is not possible to guard against azines, and of Chambers' admirable Journal. We do not the influx of what is bad in taste and vicious in morals, consider it beneath our dignity to borrow wit and wisdom in any other way than by furnishing a sufficient supply from Punch; and, when we think it good enough, make of a healthy character. The mental and moral appetite use of the thunder of The Times. We shall increase our must be gratified. variety by importations from the continent of Europe, and from the new growth of the British colonies. The steamship has brought Europe, Asia, and Africa, into our neighborhood; and will greatly multiply our connections, as Merchants, Travellers, and Politicians, with all parts of the world; so that much more than ever it Complete sets, in fifteen volumes, to the end of 1847, hannseinely bound, and packed in neat boxes, are for sale at thirty dollars. Any volume may he had separately at two dollars, bound, or a dollar and a half in numbers. Any number may be had for 12 cents; and it may be worth while for subscribers or purchasers to complete any broken volumes they may have, and thus greatly enhance their value. We hope that, by "winnowing the wheat from the chaff" by providing abundantly for the imagination, and by a large collection of Biography, Voyages and Travels, History, and more solid matter, we may produce a work which shall be popular, while at the saine time it wil aspire to raise the standard of public taste. Agencies. We are desirous of making arrangements, in all parts of North America, for increasing the circulation of this work-and for doing this a liberal commissio will be allowed to gentlemen who will interest themselve in the business. And we will gladly correspond on this subject with any agent who will send us undoubted refer ences. Postage. When sent with the cover on, the Living Age consists of three sheets, and is rated as a pamphlet, at 4 cents. But when sent without the cover, it comes within the definition of a newspaper given in the law, and cannot legally be charged with more than newspaper postage, (14 cts.) We add the definition alluded to: A newspaper is "any printed publication, issued in numbers, consisting of not more than two sheets, and published at short, stated intervals of not more than one month, conveying intelligence of passing events." Monthly parts.-For such as prefer it in that form, the Living Age is put up in monthly parts, containing four or five weekly numbers. In this shape it shows to great advantage in comparison with other works, containing in Binding. We bind the work in a uniform, strong, and each part double the matter of any of the quarterlies. good style; and where customers bring their numbers in But we recommend the weekly numbers, as fresher and good order, can generally give them bound volumes in ex-fuller of life. Postage on the monthly parts is about 14 change without any delay. The price of the binding is cents. The volumes are published quarterly, each volume 50 cents a volume. As they are always bound to one containing as much matter as a quarterly review gives in pattern, there will be no difficulty in matching the future eighteen months. volumes. WASHINGTON, 27 DEC., 1845. Of all the Periodical Journals devoted to literature and science which abound in Europe and in this country, this has appeared to me to be the most useful. It contains indeed the exposition only of the current literature of the English language, but this by its immense extent and comprehension includes a portraiture of the human mind a the utmost expansion of the present age. J. Q. ADAMS LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 202.-25 MARCH, 1848. From the North British Review. 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. ception of a short Biographical Memoir, and a popular abstract of his astronomical observations on the nebulæ and double stars, and on the bodies of our own system,† no suitable account of his labors has appeared even in our larger treatises on astronomy, and general readers have, therefore, no adequate idea of the value and extent of his discoveries. Though his scientific studies did not, as we have already stated, commence till he had reached the middle period of life, yet he pursued them, under difficulties of no ordinary kind, with all the ardor of youthful devotion, and with that dauntless and indefatigable perseverance which never fails of success. Every step indeed of his astronomical career was marked with discoveries equally interesting and unexpected. New planets and new satellites, were successively added to our own solar system. Thousands of nebulæ and double stars were discovered in the sidereal firmament, and in those remote regions of space where the imagination had hitherto scarcely dared to wander, and where the stars in countless multitudes seemed to be fixed in absolute immobility, the physical astronomer was directed to new systems of worlds-binary, ternary, and multipleexhibiting the general phenomena of annual and diurnal rotation, and rendering it probable that the law of gravitation extended to the remotest corners of space. His invention of instruments, and of new methods of observation, was no less surprising than the wonders which they disclosed. Obstacles that other men had found insuperable he speedily surmounted. The telescope which Galileo held in his hand as a toy, became under Sir William Herschel's direction a stupendous machine, which supported the astronomer himself, and even his friends, and which mechanical power was requisite even to move. There was in short no continuity In the history of Astronomical Discovery there shine no brighter names than those of Sir William and Sir John Herschel-the father and the son. It is rare that the intellectual mantle of the parent lights upon the child. By no culture, however skilful, and no anxieties, however earnest, can we transmit to our sussessors the qualities or the capacities of the mind. The eagle eye, the active limb, the giant frame, and the " form divine" the gifts of our mortal being, are frequently conveyed by natural descent, and may be numbered even among the rights of primogeniture; but the higher developments of reason and fancy, the bright coruscations of the soul, have never been ranked among the claims or the accidents of birth. The gifts of fortune which we inherit or acquire, have been placed more immediately at our disposal, and in many cases have been handed down unimpaired to distant generations; but Providence has reserved for its own distribution, those transcendental powers which give omnipotence to genius, and constitute its possessor the high priest of nature, or the vicegerent of Heaven. In a destiny so lofty, the father and the son have been rarely associated; and in the very few cases in which a joint commission has been issued to them, it has generally been to 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 fimament, and when it does appear we watch its phases and its mutations with a corresponding in-between his inventions and discoveries, and those terest. The case of the two Herschels is a remarkable one, and may appear an exception to our general law. The father, however, was not called to the survey of the heavens, till he had passed the middle period of life, and it was but a just arrangement, that the son in his youth and manhood, should continue and complete the labors of his sire. The records of Astronomy do not emblazon a more glorious day than that, in which the semidiurnal arc of the father was succeeded by the semidiurnal arc of the son. No sooner had the evening luminary disappeared amid the gorgeous magnificence of the west, than the morning star arose, bright and cloudless in its appointed course. of preceding astronomers. He adventured upon a flight which left them at an immeasurable distance. and he penetrated into regions where the ablest of his successors have had some difficulty in following him. As "the telescopic survey of the whole surface of the sidereal heavens," contained in the great work of Sir John Herschel, which is now before us, is a continuation and completion of the labors of his father, we shall endeavor to give our readers a brief and general account of the discoveries of * Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, April, 1823, vol. viii., pp. 209-226. +Edinburgh Encyclopædia, Art. Astronomy. A very interesting and valuable account of the Life It has long been a subject of regret to the as- and works of Sir W. Herschel, by M. Arago, was pubtronomical world, that in our language no extended lished in the Annuaire for 1842. It contains a full and account has yet been published of the life and dis- critical analysis of his discoveries, and is distinguished by the eloquence and learning which characterize the coveries of Sir William Herschel. With the ex-writings of that illustrious philosopher. 37 Sir William, interspersed with a few notices of the principal events of his life. 66 most promising of the designs. 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 any of the fixed observatories of Europe. With the earnings of a profession not the most lucrative, and by the energy of his own mind, and the labor of his own hands, had this private individual done more for the prosecution of astronomical discovery than all the sovereigns of Europe combined; and many years had not elapsed before he had outstripped in discovery men educated in all the mysteries of science, and supported by all the munificence of princes. The earliest of his observations which he deemed worthy 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. Sir William Herschel was born in the city of Hanover on the 15th November, 1738. His father, who was a professor of music, educated his five sons in the same art; but William, who was the second, after exercising his profession for about five years, in Hanover, resolved to push his fortune in England, where he arrived about the end of the year 1759. Although he was enthusiastically devoted to his profession, and pursued it with such success, as to draw from it an income considerably above his wants, his ardent mind was occasionally devoted to still higher objects. When he was resident at Halifax he acquired, by his own application, a considerable knowledge of mathematics, and having studied astronomy and optics, in the popular writings of Ferguson, he was anxious to witness with his own eyes the wonders of the planetary system. Having received from a friend the loan of a telescope, two feet in focal length, he directed it to the heavens, and was so delighted with the actual sight of phenomena, which he had previously known only from books, that he commissioned a friend to purchase for him in London a telescope with a high magnifying power. Fortunately for science, the price of such an instrument greatly exceeded his means, and he immediately resolved to construct a telescope with his own hands. After encountering the difficulties which every amateur at first experiences in the casting, grinding, and polishing of metallic specula for reflecting telescopes, he completed in 1776 a reflecting instrument, five feet in focal length, with which he was able to observe the ring of Saturn and the satellites and belts of Jupiter. This telescope was completed when he resided at Bath, where he acquired by degrees, and at his leisure hours, that practical knowledge of optics and mechanics which was necessary for such a task. His experience in this scientific art was of the In these observations, which are not of very most remarkable kind. He had constructed for great importance, Mr. Herschel measured with a himself several two-feet, five-feet, seven-feet, ten-micrometer the distance of the periodical star from feet, and twenty-feet Newtonian telescopes, besides a very obscure telescopic star which preceded it, others of the Gregorian form of eight-inches, and he used a power of 449, his usual power being twelve-inches, two-feet, three-feet, five-feet, and ten-feet focal length. His way of executing these instruments, at this time, when the direct method, of giving the figure of any one of the conic sections to specula, was yet unknown to him, was to cast many mirrors of each sort, to grind and polish them as accurately as he could, and then, after selecting and preserving the best of them for use, he put the rest aside to be repolished. In this This very extraordinary star, known by the name of way he executed no fewer than two hundred spec-posed to vary with its magnitude; but Captain Smith Mera, has a reddish yellow color, which has been supula, seven feet in focal length, one hundred and always found it to be reddish when viewed through his fifty, ten feet in focal length, and about eighty telescope. It has a companion, distant 116 seconds, of a twenty feet in focal length, besides a great num-variations being from the second magnitude to invisibility pale lilac color, whose angle of position is 88° 9'; its ber of specula of the Gregorian form, and of the construction of Dr. Smith's reflecting microscope. His mechanical labors were contemporaneous with his optical ones. He invented a great number of stands for these telescopes, contriving and delineating them of different forms, and executing the only 222. This paper was accompanied by another, read at the same meeting, "On the Mountains of the Moon," in which he draws the conclusion, that the height of the Lunar Mountains has, in general, been greatly overrated, and that, *No account of the aerial stand here mentioned, or of the stand of the seven-feet reflector, was ever published by their inventor. and its place 2h 11' 16" R. ascension, and 3° 42′ 39′′ S. declination. Count De Hahn thought he saw another change had taken place between the two stars; but Capcompanion. Sir W. Herschel conjectured that a rapid tain Smith is inclined to think that there has been little or no movement beyond what may be ascribed t the proper motions of o Ceti in space.-See Smith's Celestial Cycle, vol. ii., pp. 59, 60. with the exception of a few, (1 to 14 miles high,) | schel. The Royal Society of London elected him "the generality do not exceed half a mile in their perpendicular elevation.”* 66 a fellow of their body. His Majesty George III. did himself the honor of granting him a salary of £300 a year, so as to enable him to devote his time to astronomical research; and all the scientific bodies in Europe successively admitted him into the list of their members. The next communication of our author to the Royal Society, was a letter to Dr. William Watson, entitled, Observations on the Rotation of the Planets round their axes, made with a view to determine whether the Earth's diurnal motion is per- With the fine telescopes in his possession, Mr. fectly equable." In these observations, by which Herschel began in October, 1781, to make a series Jupiter's diurnal rotation was found to be 9h 51' of observations on the light, diameter, and magni19". and that of Mars, 24h 39′ 23′′, Mr. Herschel tude of the new planet; and in his paper on this employed a twenty-feet, a ten-feet, and a seven-subject read at the Royal Society on the 7th Dec., feet Newtonian reflector; and he obtained his time 1782, he described the dark and lucid disc and with a brass quadrant of two feet radius, carrying | periphery micrometers by which these observations a telescope 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. In the year 1781, Mr. Herschel was engaged in a series of observations "On the Parallax of the Fixed Stars," in which he used magnifying powers of 227, 460, 932, 1536, and 2010, and on the 13th March, when he was examining the small stars in the neighborhood of H. Geminorum, he discovered what he thought to be a comet, and after observing it till the 19th of April, he communicated "An account of a Comet" to the Royal Society, on the 26th of the same month. In this paper, he gives its distance from certain telescopic stars in its vicinity, and by means of a micrometer for taking the angle of position, described at the end of the paper, he obtained measures of its angle of position with the same fixed star. Although M. Messier, to whom Mr. Herschel communicated his observations, and who had with some difficulty observed it, speaks of it in his reply as a star or a comet, yet neither of them suspected it to be a planet. Mr. Herschel, indeed, himself speaks of a moving star, which he was happy to surrender to the care of the astronomer royal and others." it as 66 were made. With this apparatus, by means of which one eye, looking into the telescope, throws the magnified image of a planet or comet upon, or near, lucid discs seen by the other eye, he found the diameter of the Georgium Sidus to be four seconds; and from the distance of the planet from the sun, as calculated and sent to him by La Lande, (18-913—that of the earth being 1,) he found its diameter to be 4:454 times that of the earth. The researches of Mr. Herschel on the Parallax of the Fixed Stars, which we have already mentioned, were chiefly of a speculative nature, and the result of them was published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1782. The method first pointed out by Galileo, and followed by Flamstead and Bradley, of measuring the zenith distances of two stars, was regarded by Mr. Herschel as liable to various sources of error; and he was of opinion that though Bradley regarded the maximum parallax as not exceeding 1', yet "the stars of the first magnitude might still have a parallax of several seconds." The method which he substituted, and which had been originally suggested by Galileo, in his Systema Cosmicum, consisted in employing two stars as near to each other as possible, and differing as much in magnitude as could be Before the close of the year 1781, Mr. Herschel, found, and determining their exact place at the two in a letter to Sir Joseph Banks, announced to the opposite points of the earth's annual orbit. The Royal Society, that, "by the observations of the parallax of the stars was then to be computed by most eminent astronomers in Europe, the new star a theory founded on probabilities, and involving the which he had the honor of pointing out to them in two postulates: 1. That the stars are, one with March, 1781, is a primary planet of our Solar another, about the size of the sun; and, 2. That System;" and in gratitude to his Majesty George the difference of their apparent magnitudes is owing III., to whose unlimited bounty he owed every- to their different distances;" so that a star of the thring," he gave it the name of the GEORGIUM SI- second, third, or fourth magnitude is two, three, DUS, a compliment which astronomers in every or four times as far off as one of the first. This part of the world have refused to pay. La Lande, method, ingenious as it is, has not led to any and others, gave it the more appropriate name of results on which confidence can be placed. The Herschel; but the uniformity of astronomical no- | postulates which it involves were contrary to all menclature demanded another name, and the appel- analogy, and have been completely disproved by lation of Uranus, sanctioned by more recent discus- the only measures of parallax which have been sions, was given to the new planet. recently obtained. But like many other speculaThis important discovery, by which the limits tions, the attempt to prove or to apply them led to of the Solar System were extended to nearly double results more important than those which they their former amount, was hailed by the astrono- directly contemplated. In searching for double mers of every country, and the highest expecta- stars suitable for his purpose, Mr. Herschel was tions were formed of the future labors of Mr. Her-led to the formation of those magnificent catalogues of double stars by which he enriched astronomy, and those interesting results respecting the move 66 *It has been since proved that there are several mountains nearly twice the height of Mont Blanc. 66 |