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Horsehair and cardboard
Horsehair wrapped around cardboard. This horsehair comes from a 15-drawer cabinet found in the Herschel family home in the 1950s. The contents of this and a similar cabinet seems to suggest that they were used by successive generations of the family to store specimens, material and apparatus for carrying out experiments.
It seems likely that this dates from the Herschels' days as musicians in Bath as horsehair is commonly used in the bows of string instruments such as the violin but has no readily apparent use in astronomy.
It seems likely that this dates from the Herschels' days as musicians in Bath as horsehair is commonly used in the bows of string instruments such as the violin but has no readily apparent use in astronomy.
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