Great Astronomers
GREAT ASTRONOMERS by SIR ROBERT S. BALL D.Sc. LL.D. F.R.S. Lowndean Professor of Astronomy and Geometry in the University of Cambridge Author of "In Starry Realms" "In the High Heavens" etc. [PLATE: GREENWICH OBSERVATORY.] PREFACE. It has been my object in these pages to present the life of each astronomer in such detail as to enable the reader to realise in some degree the man's character and surroundings; and I have
London bankers, other than the Bank of England, effect this in
several ways. First, they have probably discounted bills to a large
amount for the bill brokers, and if these bills are paid, they
decline discounting any others to replace them. The directors of the
London and Westminster Bank had, in the panic of 1857, discounted
millions of such bills, and they justly said that if those bills
were paid they would have an amount of cash far more than sufficient
for any demand. But how were those bills to be paid? Some one
else must lend the money to pay them. The mercantile community could
not on a sudden bear to lose so large a sum of borrowed money; they
have been used to rely on it, and they could not carry on their
business without it. Least of all could they bear it at the
beginning of a panic, when everybody wants more money than usual.
Speaking broadly, those bills can only be paid by the discount of
other bills. When the bills (suppose) of a Manchester warehouseman
which he gave to the manufacturer become due, he cannot, as a rule,
pay for them at once in cash; he has bought on credit, and he has
sold on credit. He is but a middleman. To pay his own bill to the
maker of the goods, he must discount the bills he has received from
the shopkeepers to whom he has sold the goods; but if there is a
sudden cessation in the means of discount, he will not be able to
discount them. All our mercantile community must obtain new loans to
pay old debts. If some one else did not pour into the market the
money which the banks like the London and Westminster Bank take out
of it, the bills held by the London and Westminster Bank could not
GREAT ASTRONOMERS by SIR ROBERT S. BALL D.Sc. LL.D. F.R.S. Lowndean Professor of Astronomy and Geometry in the University of Cambridge Author of "In Starry Realms" "In the High Heavens" etc. [PLATE: GREENWICH OBSERVATORY.] PREFACE. It has been my object in these pages to present the life of each astronomer in such detail as to enable the reader to realise in some degree the man's character and surroundings; and I have