Maggie desires me to finish this for her, but she has not left me room to write at length. So I will only devote this space to one point in your last letter which requires reply. I have not got Gauss’s apparatus, and I am not sufficiently acquainted with his method of observing to construct one for myself. Besides which it is quite out of my power to undertake any extensive series of observations, being anxious to get home, and having still so much to do, both in observation and reduction, that I really shall hardly be able to accomplish all I have already in hand. This comet [Halley’s] has been a great interruption to my sweeps, and I _hope_ and _fear_ it may yet be visible another month. Unluckily when I sailed from England I left all my volumes of Poggendorff and the _Nachrichten_ behind me, and none of the former and very few of the latter have reached me here. I fear it is now too late to send home for anything, and I have two series of observations, viz., of the comparative brightness of the southern stars, and of the photometric estimation of their magnitudes—the former just commencing, the latter not yet begun, which I _must_ do. Pray explain this to Gauss.... Astronomical news I have little, but one thing very remarkable I must tell you, γ Virginis is now _a single star_ in both the twenty-foot and the seven-foot equatorial!!! Your affectionate nephew, J. F. W. HERSCHEL. MISS HERSCHEL TO SIR J. F. W. HERSCHEL. HANOVER, _June 29, 1836_. MY DEAREST NEPHEW,— I do not know where to begin, for I see it is nearly a twelvemonth since I gave some account of myself, and in all that time never returned my thanks for the three letters I received.... I have a great deal to say, and will begin with accounting for my long silence, by confessing that I have throughout the whole winter been too ill to do anything besides nursing myself, and putting myself in a condition to appear before strangers, which I am not able to do till after twelve or one at noon, and the time which I wanted to rest after my exertion and getting my breakfast was generally taken up by pacifying the _gulls_ about the foolish paragraphs they had been reading the night before in the Clubs. I never read, or would read, any of them, but when I heard of anything appearing rational concerning you, I copied or procured the paper for myself, and then I found among the rest a letter of yours to Professor Plana, in Turin, dated December 28th, 1834. And not being able to do anything of use to you myself, I begged Capt. Müller to cause those observations of June 21st, &c., to be made by somebody here in Hanover, and the enclosed letter will, I hope, meet with a gracious reception.... I believe Dr. Heere will not fail the next equinox to be at his post, and you may hear more of him.