prove. The book is painfully interesting, but except in all that
relates to the personal character of Flamsteed, I could almost have
wished the documents had been destroyed. People of judgment well
know that men without faults are monsters, but vulgar minds delight
in seeing the standard of human excellence lowered.

Dear Madam,
Yours faithfully,
W.H. SMYTH.

We were deprived of the society of Sir John and Lady Herschel for four
years, because Sir John took his telescope and other instruments to the
Cape of Good Hope, where he went, accompanied by his family, for the
purpose of observing the celestial phenomena of the southern hemisphere.
There are more than 6,000 double stars in the northern hemisphere, in a
large proportion of which the angle of position and distance between the
two stars have been measured, and Sir John determined, in the same
manner, 1081 in the southern hemisphere, and I believe many additions
have been made to them since that time. In many of these one star
revolves rapidly round the other. The elliptical orbits and periodical
times of sixteen or seventeen of these stellar systems have been
determined. In Gamma Virginis the two stars are nearly of the same
magnitude, and were so far apart in the middle of the last century that
they were considered to be quite independent of each other. Since then
they have been gradually approaching one another, till, in March, 1836,
I had a letter from Admiral Smyth, informing me that he had seen one of
the stars eclipse the other, from his observatory at Bedford.

FROM ADMIRAL SMYTH TO MRS. SOMERVILLE.

CRESCENT, BEDFORD, _March 26th, 1836_.

MY DEAR MADAM,

Knowing the great interest you take in sidereal astronomy, of which
so little is yet known, I trust it will not be an intrusion to tell
you of a new, extraordinary, and very unexpected fact, in the
complete occultation of one "fixed" star by another, under
circumstances which admit of no possible doubt or equivocation.

You are aware that I have been measuring the position and distance
of the two stars [Greek: g]^1 and [Greek: g]^2 Virginis, which are both
nearly of similar magnitudes, and also, that they have approximated to
each other very rapidly. They were very close last year, and I ex