[Sidenote: 1826. _Accident at Sea._] MISS HERSCHEL TO J. F. W. HERSCHEL. _Dec. 5, 1826._ MY DEAREST NEPHEW,— I received your letter of the 18th November, the day before yesterday, therefore fifteen days old, which is pretty well considering the time of year. I hope this will reach you soon, for I have longed very much to give you an account of the last parcel of papers you sent, which I only deferred till I had received an account of your safe arrival in England by your own hands. The parcel which you gave to Mr. Goltermann on the 18th August arrived here by the messenger on the 3rd November, and five days after (which it took me to dry the copies, for the messenger had met with storm and accidents at sea, and some of his boxes had been under water), viz., the 18th Nov., I sent to Göttingen, according to direction, with a note, to Gauss. And those to Bessel and Encke I enclosed with Bode’s copy, and wrote a letter to the same by way of thanks for some kind enquiries he had made after me; and now I see that fourteen days after this good man [Bode] departed this world in his eightieth year, but I have no doubt he has delivered the papers immediately, for he had no illness, and was at his last hour at his writing-table employed with writing the _Berliner Jahrbuch_ for 1830. The copies were, after being dried, perfectly clean, no stain remaining, and that they were so long detained is not the fault of Mr. G., for the Michaelmas messenger was the first that went after the 18th Aug. In the parcel I found also the letter you wrote before leaving England, which I concluded to have been lost, but now all is safe. _Sun and Comet._—At Hanover totally cloudy, and by what I can learn from a certain astronomical gossip, Prof. Wild, it has been so throughout all Germany, for _he_ has had no account that anything has been seen on the 18th Nov. On the 17th it is mentioned (in the _Zeitungen_, I believe) a large spot on the sun to have been observed at Frankfort, but the 18th being cloudy it could not be pursued. In your observations with the twenty-foot you mention a Mr. Ramage as having observed with you; and in another place you speak of his twenty-five-foot reflector. Pray tell me something about this gentleman, for I never heard his name before, and if I had not been so fortunate as to have seen Babbage and South just before I left England, I should not now have the comfort to know you had so estimable friends to communicate with; and I shall rejoice to know that the number of valuable men I have known, and are no more, might be replaced by some who are worthy to be contemporary with the son of your father!