In these days, after so many ardent students everywhere have devoted
themselves to the study of Nature, it seems difficult for a beginner
to find a virgin territory in which to commence his explorations.
Halley may, however, be said to have enjoyed the privilege of
commencing to work in a magnificent region, the contents of which
were previously almost entirely unknown. Indeed none of the stars
which were so situated as to have been invisible from Tycho Brahe's
observatory at Uraniborg, in Denmark, could be said to have been
properly observed. There was, no doubt, a rumour that a Dutchman had
observed southern stars from the island of Sumatra, and certain stars
were indicated in the southern heavens on a celestial globe. On
examination, however, Halley found that no reliance could be placed
on the results which had been obtained, so that practically the field
before him may be said to have been unworked.
At the age of twenty, without having even waited to take that degree
at the university which the authorities would have been glad to
confer on so promising an undergraduate, this ardent student of
Nature sought his father's permission to go to the southern
hemisphere for the purpose of studying the stars which lie around the
southern pole.
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