with which she was not familiar and which repaid her for her time; and on September 18th, observing the two nebulæ in Ursa Major, which she had known "for many a year," but which to her surprise now appeared to be three. "The bright part of this object was clearly the old nebula, but what was the appendage? Had the nebula suddenly changed? Was it a comet, or was it merely a very fine night? Father decided at once for the comet; I hesitated, with my usual cowardice, and forbade his giving it a notice in the newspaper." Flying clouds prevented more satisfactory observations that evening and the next two, but "on the 2lst came a circular, and behold Mr. Van Arsdale had seen it on the 13th, but had not been sure of it until the 15th on account of the clouds. I was too well pleased with having really made the discovery to care because I was not the first. Let the Dutchman have the reward of his sturdier frame and steadier nerves!" She consoled herself, further, by reflecting that the 13th was cloudy, and that she had evaded the task of making the computations, which she would have had to do to call the discovery hers. She seems, however, to have tried her hand at the computations, and was despondent because she had to renounce her own observations as too rough for use. "The best that can be said of my life so far is that it has been industrious, and the best that can be said of me is that I have not pretended to be what I was not."
The diary for 1857 tells of an extensive tour through the South, the many striking incidents of which are recorded with keen humor, and the first journey in Europe, in which Miss Mitchell took her almanac work with her.
On this her first visit to Europe, in 1857–’58, Miss Mitchell took letters from eminent scientific men in the United States to distinguished astronomers and mathematicians, and other persons, abroad. She was cordially received, and the astronomers opened their observatories to her and entertained her at their homes. To mention the names of all the notable persons whose acquaintance she thus made would be like making a list of the men of the time distinguished in science, literature, and art. Her observations, very freely given in her private journal but always kindly, contain much about the instruments and furnishings of the scientific establishments and the methods of carrying on the work. She found Mr. Airy, at Greenwich, not favorable to the multiplication of observatories; and to his remark that he would gladly destroy one half of the meridian instruments of the world by way of reform, she replied that her reform movement would be to bring together the astronomers who had no instruments and the instruments which had no astronomers. At Greenwich she met Herr Struve, the famous astronomer of Pulkova, visiting England on a scientific mission—"a magnificent-looking fellow, very large
