erection, the discovery of the coincidence between the sun-spot and
magnetic periods was announced. Carrington was profoundly interested,
and devoted his enforced leisure to the examination of records, both
written and depicted, of past solar observations. Struck with their
fragmentary and inconsistent character, he resolved to "appropriate," as
he said, by "close and methodical research," the eleven-year period next
ensuing.[410] He calculated rightly that he should have the field pretty
nearly to himself; for many reasons conspire to make public
observatories slow in taking up new subjects, and amateurs with freedom
to choose, and means to treat them effectually, were scarcer then than
they are now.

The execution of this laborious task was commenced November 9, 1853. It
was intended to be merely a _parergon_--a "second subject," upon which
daylight energies might be spent, while the hours of night were reserved
for cataloguing those stars that "are bereft of the baths of ocean." Its
results, however, proved of the highest interest, although the
vicissitudes of life barred the completion, in its full integrity, of
the original design. By the death, in 1858, of the elder Carrington, the
charge of the brewery devolved upon his son; and eventually absorbed so
much of his care that it was found advisable to bring the solar
observations to a premature close, on March 24, 1861.

His scientific life may be said to have closed with them. Attacked four
years later with severe, and, in its results, permanent illness, he
disposed of the Brentford business, and withdrew to Churt, near Farnham,
in Surrey. There, in a lonely spot, on the top of a detached conical
hill known as the "Devil's Jump," he built a second observatory, and
erected an instrument which he was no longer able to use with pristine
effectiveness; and there, November 27, 1875, he died of the rupture of a
blood vessel on the brain, before he had completed his fiftieth
year.[411]

His observations of sun-spots were of a geometrical character. They
concerned positions and movements, leaving out of sight physical
peculiarities. Indeed, the prudence with which he limited his task to
what came strictly within the range of his powers to accomplish, was one
of Carrington's most valuable qualities. The method of his observations,
moreover, was chosen with the same practical sagacity as their objects.
As early as 1847, Sir John Herschel had recommended the daily
self-re