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income from the proceeds of a Welsh living, which, being a
sinecure, he was able to hold with his appointment at Bridstow.
It appears, however, that his clerical occupations were not very
exacting in their demands upon his time, for he was still able to
pay long and often-repeated visits to his uncle at Wandsworth,
who, being himself a clergyman, seems to have received occasional
assistance in his ministerial duties from his astronomical nephew.
The time, however, soon arrived when Bradley was able to make a
choice between continuing to exercise his profession as a divine,
or devoting himself to a scientific career. The Savilian
Professorship of Astronomy in the University of Oxford became
vacant by the death of Dr. John Keill. The statutes forbade that
the Savilian Professor should also hold a clerical appointment,
and Mr. Pound would certainly have been elected to the
professorship had he consented to surrender his preferments in the
Church. But Pound was unwilling to sacrifice his clerical
position, and though two or three other candidates appeared in the
field, yet the talents of Bradley were so conspicuous that he was
duly elected, his willingness to resign the clerical profession
having been first ascertained.
There can be no doubt that, with such influential friends as
Bradley possessed, he would have made great advances had he
adhered to his profession as a divine. Bishop Hoadly, indeed,
with other marks of favour, had already made the astronomer his
chaplain. The engrossing nature of Bradley’s interest in
astronomy decided him, however, to sacrifice all other prospects
in comparison with the opening afforded by the Savilian
Professorship. It was not that Bradley found himself devoid of
interest in clerical matters, but he felt that the true scope for
such abilities as he possessed would be better found in the
discharge of the scientific duties of the Oxford chair than in the
spiritual charge of a parish. On April the 26th, 1722, Bradley
read his inaugural lecture in that new position on which he was
destined to confer such lustre.
It must, of course, be remembered that in those early days the art
of constructing the astronomical telescope was very imperfectly
understood. The only known method for getting over the peculiar
difficulties presented in the construction of the refracting
telescope, was to have it of the most portentous length. In fact,
Bradley made several of his observations with an instrument of two
hundred and twelve feet focus. In such a case, no tube could be
used, and the object glass was merely fixed at the top of a high
pole. Notwithstanding the inconvenience and awkwardness of such
an instrument, Bradley by its means succeeded in making many
careful measurements. He observed, for example, the transit of
Mercury over the sun’s disc, on October 9th, 1723, he also
observed the dimensions of the planet Venus, while a comet which
Halley discovered on October the 9th, 1723, was assiduously
observed at Wanstead up to the middle of the ensuing month. The
first of Bradley’s remarkable contributions to the “Philosophical
Transactions” relates to this comet, and the extraordinary amount
of work that he went through in connection therewith may
be seen from an examination of his book of Calculations which is
still extant.
The time was now approaching when Bradley was to make the first of
those two great discoveries by which his name has acquired a
lustre that has placed him in the very foremost rank of
astronomical discoverers. As has been often the case in the
history of science, the first of these great successes was
attained while he was pursuing a research intended for a wholly
different purpose. It had long been recognised that as the earth
describes a vast orbit, nearly two hundred million miles in
diameter, in its annual journey round the sun, the apparent
places of the stars should alter, to some extent, in
correspondence with the changes in the earth’s position. The
nearer the star the greater the shift in its apparent place on the
heavens, which must arise from the fact that it was seen from
different positions in the earth’s orbit. It had been pointed out
that these apparent changes in the places of the stars, due to the
movement of the earth, would provide the means of measuring the
distances of the stars. As, however, these distances are
enormously great in comparison with the orbit which the earth
describes around the sun, the attempt to determine the distances
of the stars by the shift in their positions had hitherto proved
ineffectual. Bradley determined to enter on this research once
again; he thought that by using instruments of greater power, and
by making measurements of increased delicacy, he would be able to
perceive and to measure displacements which had proved so small as
to elude the skill of the other astronomers who had previously
made efforts in the same direction. In order to simplify the
investigation as much as possible, Bradley devoted his attention
to one particular star, Beta Draconis, which happened to pass near
his zenith. The object of choosing a star in this position was to
avoid the difficulties which would be introduced by refraction had
the star occupied any other place in the heavens than that
directly overhead.
We are still able to identify the very spot on which the telescope
stood which was used in this memorable research. It was erected
at the house then occupied by Molyneux, on the western extremity
of Kew Green. The focal length was 24 feet 3 inches, and the eye-glass was 3 and a half feet above the ground floor. The
instrument was first set up on November 26th, 1725. If there had
be any appreciable disturbance in the place of Beta Draconis in
consequence of the movement of the earth around the sun, the star
must appear to have the smallest latitude when in conjunction with
the sun, and the greatest when in opposition. The star passed the
meridian at noon in December, and its position was particularly
noticed by Molyneux on the third of that month. Any perceptible
displacement by parallax—for so the apparent change in position,
due to the earth’s motion, is called—would would have made the
star shift towards the north. Bradley, however, when observing it
on the 17th, was surprised to find that the apparent place of the
star, so far from shifting towards the north, as they had perhaps
hoped it would, was found to lie a little more to the south than
when it was observed before. He took extreme care to be sure that
there was no mistake in his observation, and, true astronomer as
he was, he scrutinized with the utmost minuteness all the
circumstances of the adjustment of his instruments. Still the
star went to the south, and it continued so advancing in the same
direction until the following March, by which time it had moved no
less than twenty seconds south from the place which it occupied
when the first observation was made. After a brief pause, in
which no apparent movement was perceptible, the star by the middle
of April appeared to be returning to the north. Early in June it
reached the same distance from the zenith which it had in
December. By September the star was as much as thirty-nine
seconds more to the north than it had been in March, then it
returned towards the south, regaining in December the same
situation which it had occupied twelve months before.
This movement of the star being directly opposite to the movements
which would have been the consequence of parallax, seemed to show
that even if the star had any parallax its effects upon the
apparent place were entirely masked by a much larger motion of a
totally different description. Various attempts were made to
account for the phenomenon, but they were not successful. Bradley
accordingly determined to investigate the whole subject in a more
thorough manner. One of his objects was to try whether the same
movements which he had observed in one star were in any similar
degree possessed by other stars. For this purpose he set up a new
instrument at Wanstead, and there he commenced a most diligent
scrutiny of the apparent places of several stars which passed at
different distances from the zenith. He found in the course of
this research that other stars exhibited movements of a similar
description to those which had already proved so perplexing. For
a long time the cause of these apparent movements seemed a
mystery. At last, however, the explanation of these remarkable
phenomena dawned upon him, and his great discovery was made.
One day when Bradley was out sailing he happened to remark that
every time the boat was laid on a different tack the vane at the
top of the boat’s mast shifted a little, as if there had been a
slight change in the direction of the wind. After he had noticed
this three or four times he made a remark to the sailors to the
effect that it was very strange the wind should always happen to
change just at the moment when the boat was going about. The
sailors, however, said there had been no change in the wind, but
that the alteration in the vane was due to the fact that the
boat’s course had been altered. In fact, the position of the
vane was determined both by the course of the boat and the
direction of the wind, and if either of these were altered there
would be a corresponding change in the direction of the vane.
This meant, of course, that the observer in the boat which was
moving along would feel the wind coming from a point different
from that in which the wind appeared to be blowing when the boat
was at rest, or when it was sailing in some different direction.
Bradley’s sagacity saw in this observation the clue to the
Difficulty which had so long troubled him.
It had been discovered before the time of Bradley that the passage
of light through space is not an instantaneous phenomenon. Light
requires time for its journey. Galileo surmised that the sun may
have reached the horizon before we see it there, and it was indeed
sufficiently obvious that a physical action, like the transmission
of light, could hardly take place without requiring some lapse of
time. The speed with which light actually travelled was, however,
so rapid that its determination eluded all the means of
experimenting which were available in those days. The penetration
of Roemer had previously detected irregularities in the observed
times of the eclipses of Jupiter’s satellites, which were
undoubtedly due to the interval which light required for
stretching across the interplanetary spaces. Bradley argued that
as light can only travel with a certain speed, it may in a
measure be regarded like the wind, which he noticed in the boat.
If the observer were at rest, that is to say, if the earth were a
stationary object, the direction in which the light actually does
come would be different from that in which it appears to come when
the earth is in motion. It is true that the earth travels but
eighteen miles a second, while the velocity with which light is
borne along attains to as much as 180,000 miles a second. The
velocity of light is thus ten thousand times greater than the
speed of the earth. But even though the wind blew ten
thousand times faster than the speed with which the boat was
sailing there would still be some change, though no doubt a very
small change, in the position of the vane when the boat was in
progress from the position it would have if the boat were at rest.
It therefore occurred to this most acute of astronomers that when
the telescope was pointed towards a star so as to
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