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

211.- THJit PLANETS.
a young mathleinaticitan of thle tUlniversity of Cambridge (E'ng.),
MA1r. Adlms, had, without tilhe least knowlede of wlhat A1. _Le
Vclricr was doing, arrived at the same great re'sult. IBut
]having failed to publish his paper until thle worlc was madel
1acquainted Nwith the facts tlrotolg the otlher medium, he Itas
lost much of the honor which thle priority of discovery would
hlave gailed for him. Thus txwo distinguislhed mathematicianlis,
unknown to each other, and by entirely indepeltdClt processes,
hlad arrived at the same results, as regarded )oth thle Cxistence
of tlhe supposed planet, and the regioln of the starry heavens
where at thalt moment it lay concealed; and, to crow\n all,
astronomerls, ill obedience to the d(ircetion of one of them, hlad
lointed tlheir telescopes to the spot and found it there. T11he
contviction on the mind of every one was, that notting but
absolute truth could allide,a test so unequivocal. It still
rcnlained, llowcver, to determine by observation whether the
body actually) conformed, in all respects, to the results of
tllhcoy. To settle this point omlpletely, that is, to dcetermline
witht precision the elemenlts of the orbit fi'om observation,
would require a long time in a planetary body whose motion
was so slow that more than two cenlturis, as was supposetd,
Nwould be requiredl to conmplcete a single revolution. lBut if it
s11oultd be found that, 1amonlg )lprcccding catalogues of the stars,
thtis body miglt lhave ceen included, and its place recorded as
a fixed:star, then, by comparing tltat p)lace with its present
position, and noti.ng tie ilt.erval of time between the two
observations, wNe might thus learn tlhe rate of itS nmotion, and
its periodic time, and mnight thence deduce various otlher particulars; deplendent oil these clementl. Our disting'uished coutntrymuan, iMr. Sears C. Walker, then comlected with the observatory at Washington, lunldertook this investigation. First,
fromt the1 observations alreadv accumulated, l e calculated the
path which the planet mustt lhave pursued for the last fifty or
sixty years, and by tracing this path among the stars of,ialalide's catalogtue, he found tlhat t passed withliln two minutes
of a star of the seventh macgnitude, whic was recordled as
being seen in AMay, 1795. ProfeBssor Iltlbbard, of the samo
obsorvatory, on reconnoitering for this star, found that it was
lissinlg. Little doubt remained that tlhe star scoen by alando
vwas tle )lantlt of le VFerlier; and this conclusion \Vwas con