An introduction to astronomy: designed as a text-book for the use of students in college. By Denison Olmsted ...

N E, uPT Ni i 213
assutced and unassulmed elenments of the body in que'stion.
These equatiollns wrte exceedingly compllex and difficult of reductionll; bullt, )tby tellc most itngellious artifices, the several unkllown quanl\ tities cre succesitvcly eliminatcd, cithllclr dircctly
or by repeated approxilationls, 1un1til the glceat geolletert arrived at exprcssiolls for t.le clclmtcllts of th.e 1unknown plallet,
whlich indicated its place amlOlng tlhe stairs, its qluantity of ilmattel', the shape of its orbit, and the p)eriOd of its re'volution.
tXavinlg placed the body ini various p)ositions in tire orbit thus
determined, he found that a;when situated at a point in the constellation Capricornus, its cffect upon Uranus ^\\would be such
as colrrlcsiponded to tlte irregularities to be accountetd fr that
on thet 1st ofi January, 18ti7, the hidden planet Nwould hlave a
loncgitu1(1t of 326~ 32', and would lie aboutt five degrees ast-ward of thel well-klown star Deilai Cqapj2icornZii. Ic firther
asserted that it mwould have ] an aplparent diameter of about 3",
anid thellrefore be visible to large telescopes.
352. II avilng communicated thtese reslts to the French
Acnademy, at ttheir sittinge on the 31st of Aulgtst,.1846,:le
Verricir soon afterwardlvd made tohem knovwn to )Dr. Gallo, one of
the astronomelrs of tile Rtoyal O(lsrvatory of IBerlin, with the
rcquest thlat he would setrcl for tlhe stranger with thle p ovelfill telescope at his coalmmand. O01 tlec same eveningo' that D)r.
Galle rcccived tlhe collmunication, namely, on the 23d of Septcmbcer, h1 directed his telescope towarl thle spot assigned for
thec planet, Rand telre it was, witllin lcss than a degr'C of the
pifacc indicatcd by 1oe Ve'iei, and having an apparent Inagnitudc withlin half a second of t]hat assigned. To show thlo
nearc corres)ondelnce Ibeteen tiheory and observationl, N'owe may
remllark that thle lpredicted longitude, for the:23d of September,
at mIlnigllt, was 324-~ 58', antl the observed longitude was
392~ $52'.8; thle predicted diurnal motion in long)itud(e was 69",
and thle observed'74".'These results struckl tthe scientific \toldl
with aIstonislhment, and their confirmatioIn \was one of the
greatest achievements of the hlumall.n mintd.
3:53. It lhas often happened, in tlhe hlistory of great (discoveries, that thle same hidden truth is revealed simultaneously to
dif'lklcnt ilnquircrs, and accordingly; by a sitlglllar coincidcleeu,