Named for the small but historic English town where the discoverer was born and bred. Formerly a coalmining center, Midsomer Norton lies on the fringe of the Mendip Hills, eight miles from the city of Bath, where William Herschel {see planet  (2000)} discovered Uranus in 1781, and on the Fosseway, the great Roman road stretching from central to southwestern England. The town was also a hiding place of king Charles II in the Civil War during the 1650s. (M 34631) _ _.