Another testimonial to the importance of such qualities in astronomical discovery is furnished by the career of Heinrich Schwabe, of Dessau. In the hope of escaping his fate as an apothecary he bought a small telescope in 1826, and began to observe the sun, being advised to do so by a friend. He continued to observe the sun daily (weather and health permitting) for forty-three years. Every day he counted the number of spots visible on the surface of the sun. It was a simple occupation, but it led to important consequences. His immense record of sun-spot statistics showed that the increase and decrease in the number of sun-spots did not occur in a random manner, but fell into periods, maxima alternating with minima, a complete period occupying about ten years. This figure has been modified since, but the fact of sun-spot periodicity is established and is at the present time one of the most suggestive and probably far-reaching of solar phenomena. Schwabe displayed no striking quality of mind or character beyond an almost incomprehensible patience. He was buoyed up in his spot-counting, however, by the hope of discovering a planet between Mercury and the sun, and in order to distinguish between the tiny disc of the planet crossing the face of the sun and a sun-spot, he found it necessary, in virtue of his instrumental equipment, to count the spots. When he found that, as a consequence of this pastime, he was world-famous, he likened himself to Saul who, going forth to seek his father’s asses, discovered a kingdom. His magnificent serenity of body and mind enabled him to attain the age of eighty-six. Part of his mantle fell on Richard Carrington (born 1826), who built an observatory at Redhill with the intention of devoting himself to a study of sun-spots throughout a complete cycle. He failed to finish the cycle completely, as the death of his father made it necessary for him to divert his energies to controlling a brewery. He achieved results of great importance, however. His observations were concerned with the positions and movements of the spots, and from a series of 5,290 such observations he was enabled, amongst other things, to clear up the uncertainties attending the period of rotation of the sun. Galileo, apparently not appreciating the importance of the matter, had said that the sun rotated in “about a lunar month,” and a number of other observers gave figures varying from 27 to 25 days. Carrington illuminated this darkness by remarking that there is no single period of rotation for the sun. The polar regions rotate more slowly than those in the neighbourhood of the equator; the equator rotates in a little less than twenty-five days, while in latitude 50° the period is twenty-seven and a-half days. Thus the mystery was cleared up and a fresh direction given to solar investigation.