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The Sir John Herschel Collection
The preparation of the print Calendar of the Correspondence of Sir John Herschel (Michael J. Crowe ed., David R. Dyck and James J. Kevin assoc. eds, Cambridge, England: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998, viii + 828 pp) which was funded by the National Science Foundation, took ten years. It was accomplished by a team of seventeen professors, visiting scholars, graduate students, advanced undergraduates, and staff working at the University of Notre Dame.
The first online version of Calendar was created in 2009 by Dr Marvin Bolt and Steven Lucy, working at the Webster Institute of the Adler Planetarium, and it is that data that has now been reformatted for incorporation into Ɛpsilon.
Further information about Herschel, his correspondence, and the editorial method is available online here: http://historydb.adlerplanetarium.org/herschel/?p=intro
No texts of Herschel’s letters are currently available through Ɛpsilon.
Thrilled that JH has arrived safely in Cape Town; notes that JH's Cape Town trip has captivated the intellectual world.
Experiencing 'a daily increase of pain and feebleness.'
Sweeping progressing quickly; has used the 20-ft. reflecting telescope since February. Discovered two planetary nebulae. Studying Scorpio closely, as CH suggested; has found gorgeous globular clusters there. The equatorial was erected recently.
Asks about JH's children. Remarks that JH's discovery of globular clusters in the Scorpion is not what she remembered William Herschel being mystified about; remembers that WH exclaimed that there seemed to be a 'Loch im Himmel' ('hole in heaven') there.
Hopes that JH will receive Friedrich Bessel's paper called 'On the Influence of the Irregularities of the Earth on Geodetic Operations, and their Comparison with Astronomical Determinations.'
Has decisively mapped Saturn's sixth satellite; doubts, however, that he will ever see the seventh. Asks CH to inform Friedrich Bessel of his observation.
[Postscript to a letter by Margaret Herschel:] JH notes that he has finished the reduction of the first 9 hours in Right Ascension of his southern nebulae and double stars.
Details her daily routine.
Thrilled to be named godmother of JH's first child.
Saddened at the death of JH's mother; knows that 'it can't be long before I shall follow the dear departed.'
Reports on good health and behavior of JH's new daughter, Caroline Emilia Herschel. Comments on Greek music and on recent results of the R.S.L. Glass Committee.
Sends to CH his new book, Prelim. Discourse. Writes that he 'took little part in the proceedings about the Royal Society. Under any circumstances I would not have held the office of President more than a year and should have felt it a grievous evil to have held it at all.'
JH awarded the Guelphic Order of Knighthood by King William IV, an honor earlier bestowed on William Herschel.
Wilhelm Struve's observations support JH's findings concerning the rapid revolution of Eta Coronae. In acknowledgement of the discovery that double stars are a 'revolving binary system,' JH changed the inscription on William Herschel's monument.
On his German travels, JH left Margaret Herschel and the children at Slough because he feared their exposure to the cholera epidemic.
JH reports the birth of his son William James Herschel.
JH explains how CH's money will be allotted to her while JH is in Cape Town. Margaret Herschel writes CH a note describing JH's new son William.
Mentions to CH that 2000 of the nebulae and all of the engravings are printed.
Sailing to Cape Town, JH reports sighting an English ship.
Reviews his voyage to Africa in case CH did not receive JH's 1834-1-21 letter. Repairing the house that they bought outside of Cape Town, called 'Feldhausen' by the Dutch and 'The Grove' by the English; they are staying at another home close by. Happy that Table Mountain near the house shelters Feldhausen from southeast gales.