I chose
the subject 'Gravitation,' and as I think wrote a good deal of it in
this Autumn: when it was interrupted by my illness.
"On Dec. 9th 1833, having at first intended to attend the meeting of
the Philosophical Society and then having changed my mind, I was
engaged in the evening on the formulae for effects of small errors on
the computation of the Solar Eclipse of 1833. A dizziness in my head
came on. I left off work, became worse, and went to bed, and in the
night was in high fever with a fierce attack of scarlet fever. My wife
was also attacked but very slightly. The first day of quitting my
bedroom was Dec. 31st. Somewhere about the time of my illness my
wife's sister, Susanna Smith, who was much reduced in the summer, died
of consumption.
"Miscellaneous notes in 1833 are as follows: Henderson (at the Cape)
could not endure it much longer, and on Oct. 14th Stratford writes
that Maclear had just sailed to take his place: Henderson is candidate
for the Edinburgh Observatory.--Stratford writes on Dec. 2nd that the
Madras observations have come to England, the first whose arrangement
imitates mine.--On Nov. 3rd Herschel, just going to the Cape,
entrusted to me the revisal of some proof sheets, if necessary:
however it was never needed.
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