SOMERVILLE, Mary.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Autograph letter signed, proposing an astronomical paper for the Edinburgh Review. The science popularizer writes to William Empson, the editor of the Review, suggesting he publish her paper on recent astronomical advancements: the discovery of Neptune, John Herschel's catalogue of the southern hemisphere, and the identification of new asteroids. It appealingly demonstrates Somerville's role as one of the foremost 19th-century communicators of scientific breakthroughs.Wryly noting that scientific subjects are "as interesting as any thing unconnected with the transient politics of the day can be", Somerville requests just "a corner" in the Review in which to publish her paper. She mentions three prominent scientists in her overview of its proposed content: John Couch Adams, Urbain de Verrier, and John Herschel. She is particularly laudatory of the latter, describing Herschel's "great work on the nebulae and double stars of the southern hemisphere", meaning his magisterial Results of Astronomical Observations Made During the Years at the Cape of Good Hope, published the previous year. She also refers to the "the discovery of four new telescopic planets", likely the recently identified asteroids Astraea (1845) and Hebe, Iris, and Flora (1847); Astraea was the first asteroid to be discovered since 1807. It does not appear that Empson accepted Somerville's paper, or that it was ever published. She released her most successful book, Physical Geography, in September of the same year

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