The Age of Wonder (87 page)

37
WH Chronicle, p252

38
Nevil Maskelyne, 6 December 1793; see CHA, p70

39
Pierre Méchain, 28 August 1789; see WH Chronicle, p219

40
Hoskin, pp103-7

41
WH Chronicle, p171

42
CHA, p91

43
CHM, p209

44
CHM, p309

45
Hoskin, p87

46
WH Mss 6278 1/5; and Hoskin, p88

47
CHM, p274; see Patricia Fara,
Pandora’s Breeches,
2004

48
Hoskin, p88

49
Ibid., p90

50
CHM, p209

51
WH Mss 6280; and Hoskin, p89

52
CHM, p211

53
Hoskin, pp88-90

54
CHA, p94

55
Ibid.

56
CHM, p308

57
WH Chronicle, p172

58
OS map from Hoskin, p58

59
Journal of Mrs Papendiek,
WH Chronicle, p174

60
WH Archive: miniature on ivory of Mary Herschel by J. Kernan, 1805; also reproduced in Hoskin, p97

61
Hoskin, pp91-4

62
WH to Alexander, 7 February 1788, from WH Chronicle, p178

63
Hoskin, p92

64
Journal of Mrs Papendiek,
WH Chronicle, p174

65
Ibid.

66
CHM, p178

67
WH Chronicle, p175

68
CHM, p79

69
CHA, p96

70
CHM, p79

71
WH Mss 6268 4/3

72
CHA, p57

73
CHM, pp78, 96

74
WH Chronicle, p177

75
Simon Schaffer, ‘Uranus and Herschel’s Astronomy’,
Journal for the History of Astronomy,
12, 1981, p22

76
Hoskin, p106

77
CHM, p83

78
CHM, p82

79
‘Description of a Forty Foot reflecting Telescope’ (June 1795), WH Papers 1, pp486, 512-26

80
Ibid.

81
WH Chronicle, p168

82
Ibid.

83
CHM, p168

84
Hoskin, p111

85
Ibid.

86
WH Papers 2 (1815), pp542-6

87
‘Catalogue of a Second Thousand Nebulae’, 1789, WH Papers 1, pp329-37

88
Simon Schaffer, ‘On the Nebular Hypothesis’, in
History, Humanity and Evolution,
edited by J.R. Moore, 1988

89
Hoskin, p167

90
Broadsheet cartoon by R Hawkins, Soho, February 1790; reproduced in Hoskin, p107

91
CHM, p95

92
Ibid.

93
CHM, p96

94
Ibid.

95
CHM, p98

96
CHA, p123

97
Barthélemy Faujas de Saint-Fond,
Travels in England and Scotland for the Purpose of Examining the Arts and the Sciences,
vol 1, 1799, pp65-78; see Brock, p173

98
WH Papers 1, p423

99
Erasmus Darwin,
Botanic Garden,
Part I, Canto IV (Air), lines 371-88

100
Ibid., note to line 398

101
Crowe, 1986, pp79-80

102
Pierre Laplace quoted in Simon Schaffer, ‘On the Nebular Hypothesis’, op. cit.

103
Quoted in Crowe, 1986, p78

104
‘On the Nature and Construction of the Sun’, 1795, WH Papers 1, pp470-84; and ‘Observations tending to investigate the Nature of the Sun’, 1801, WH Papers 2, pp147-80. See also discussion in Crowe, 1986, pp66-7

105
See Vincent Cronin,
The View of the Planet Earth,
1981, p173

106
‘On the Solar and Terrestrial Rays that occasion Heat’, 1800, WH Papers 2, pp77-146; see Hoskin, p99

107
Humphry Davy to Davies Giddy, 3 July 1800, in J.A. Paris,
Davy,
vol 1, p87

108
Hoskin, p101

109
British Public Characters of 1798,
1801, British Library catalogue 10818.d. I

110
WH Chronicle, pp309-11; Beattie,
Life of Campbell,
1860, vol 2, pp234-9; Sime, pp206-9

111
Hoskin, p106

112
CHM, pp259-60

113
CHM, p259

114
Gunther Buttman,
Shadow of the Telescope,
1974, p8

115
This wooden plane can be seen in the Herschel House Museum, Bath

116
Buttman, op. cit., p11

117
WH Chronicle, p281

118
Michael Hoskin,
William Herschel and the Construction of the Heavens,
1963, p130

119
WH Chronicle, pp278-9

120
WH Papers 2, ‘On the Proper Motion of the Solar System’

121
WH Papers 2, pp460-97, with illustrations of different nebulae shapes

122
WH Papers 2, ‘Astronomical Observations’, 1811, p460; and discussed by Armitage,
Herschel,
pp117-20; and Hoskin,
Stellar Astronomy,
1982, p152

123
WH Papers 1, ‘The Construction of the Heavens’, 1785; and WH Chronicle, p183

124
Byron,
Detached Thoughts,
1821

125
Byron,
Letters,
to Piggot, December 1813; and Crowe,
Extraterrestrial,
p170

126
Bonnycastle,
Astronomy,
1811, Preface, ppv-vi

127
Charles Cowden Clarke,
Recollections,
1861; see also Andrew Motion,
Keats,
pp108-12

128
I owe this vivid suggestion to Dr Percy Harrison, Head of Science, Eton

129
The idea of a sacred, piercing moment of vision into the true nature of the cosmos is also traditional in earlier eighteenthcentury poetry. See the strange prose poem by the Northumberland rector James Hervey,
Contemplations on the Night,
1747

130
Simon Schaffer, ‘Herschel on Matter Theory’,
Journal for the History of Astronomy,
June 1980

131
WH Papers 2, pp520-41; and WH Chronicle, p287

132
WH Papers 2, p541

133
William Whewell,
On the Plurality of Worlds,
1850, edited by Michael Crowe, 2001

134
Herschel to Banks, 10 June 1802, in JB Correspondence 5, p199, where Herschel offers the term ’asteroid’ reluctantly - ‘not exactly the thing we want’ - from a suggestion by the antiquary Rev Steven Weston, though fully aware that the recently discovered Pallas and Ceres were not ‘baby stars’. The usage is nonetheless dated to Herschel 1802 by the
OED.

135
Thomas Campbell quoted in WH Chronicle, p335

136
David Brewster,
Life of Sir Isaac Newton,
1831

Chapter 5: Mungo Park in Africa

1
Sir Harold Carter,
Sir Joseph Banks 1743-1820,
British Museum, Natural History, 1988, p425; and Gascoigne,
Banks and the Enlightenment,
p19

2
JB Letters, p609n; and Hector Cameron,
Sir Joseph Banks,
1952, p144

3
Cameron, p88

4
As described in Anthony Sattin,
The Gates of Africa: Death, Discovery and the Search for Timbuktu,
HarperCollins, 2003

5
The Life of Mungo Park,
by HB (anon), 1835, p284

6
Sattin, pp134-6

7
Ibid., pp136-7

8
Mungo Park,
Travels in the Interior of Africa,
1799, 1860. The edition used here is
Travels,
Nonsuch, 2005, p16

9
Sattin, p140

10
Travels, p1
9

11
Ibid., p31

12
Sattin, p143

13
Banks to Park, winter 1795, in ibid., p141

14
Travels,
p95

15
Ibid., p98

16
Ibid., p138

17
Ibid., p141

18
Ibid.

19
The Life of Mungo Park,
by HB (anon), 1835, pp289-90; also Sattin, p168

20
Travels, pp168-9

21
Ibid., p169

22
Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
The Ancient Mariner,
1798, Part IV

23
Joseph Conrad,
Geography and Some Explorers,
1924, pp28-9

24
JB Correspondence 4, Banks to Sir William Hamilton, 14 March 1798, p540

25
Ibid., no.1484, Banks to Johann Blumenbach, 19 September 1798, p554

26
Ibid., no. 1513, Blumenbach to Banks, 12 June 1799, p590

27
Walter Scott’s meeting with Park 1804; described in
The Life of Mungo Park,
by HB (anon), 1835, ‘Addenda’; and Sattin, p235

28
JB Letters, no. 78, Banks to Lord Liverpool, 8 June 1799, p209

29
Kenneth Lupton,
Mungo Park African Traveller,
OUP, 1979, p146. Lupton was the one-time District Officer at Boussa, and knew the African locations well

30
Ibid., p158

31
Travels,
‘Journal of Second Journey’, pp264-5

32
Ibid., p271

33
Park Mss, Martyn to Megan, 1 November 1805, BL Add Mss 37232.f63

34
Travels,
‘Journal of Second Journey’, p272

35
Park Mss, Park to Lord Camden, 17 November 1805, BL Add Mss 37232.f65; see also Park’s letter to Allison Park’s father, 10 November 1805, BL Add Mss 33230.f37; and Lupton, p175

36
Travels,
p274

37
Park Mss, Park to Joseph Banks, 16 November 1805, BL Add Mss 37232.k.f64

38
Alfred Tennyson, ‘Timbucto’ (poem), 1827

39
Lupton, ‘Appendix of Later Accounts’ from Isaaco, Amadi Fatouma, Richard Lander and several subsequent Niger explorers

40
Thomas Park to Allison Park, dated Accra September 1727, from Joseph Thomson,
Mungo Park and the Niger,
1890, pp241-2

41
Richard Lander’s report 1827, reprinted in Stephen Gwynn,
Mungo Park and the Quest for the Niger,
1932, p233

42
Percy Bysshe Shelley,
Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude,
1815, lines 140-9

43
Thomas Love Peacock,
Crotchet Castle,
1830; see Holmes,
Shelley: The Pursuit,
1974, p292