The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-01-10

SAID: Paper is rather scarce with u.s. 1 am q
joiner as we'll as All astronomer calculate in
my workshop, and write upon the boards, but
Nhen wish to use them In new calculations
plane off the old figures. Perhaps these have
been planed off, for made them upon piece of
board" go and look carefully" said Leverrier.
Come then into the work shop" said the Doctor,
land we will seep Together they went, and,
upon turning over the timber behold! the piece
of board was there, with its chalk figures and
lines quite legible
At length, the royal astronomer was satisfied
that the village doctor had seen new planet be-
tween Mercury and the sun, and, unbending
himself, told Lescarbault who he was, and
warmly congratulated him on his discovery and,
after some words Of encouragement, he took his
leave and he and his friend returned to Paris.
Soon afterwards he communicated the facts to
the Minister of Public Instruction. and requested
of him the decoration of the Legion OF Honor for
NJ Lescarbault The Minister in turn COM
municated the request 60 the Emperor, who
granted it, and, on the 18th day of January,
1860, his Majesty, by imperial decree, conferred
the decoration On the village astronomer VI
course the news of the discovery, and its having
received the approval OF SO great name as Lee
verrier, soon went over the civilized world. and
the new planet, which had been named Vulcan,
Immediately became the objective point for tele-
scopes great and small
But months AID years passed by and afforded
no new glimpse of the round black spot on the
disk of the sun, and at length many astronomers
gave up the search and confessed that M. Les
carbault must have been deceived, and that
what he saw was either an ordinary spot upon
the suns face, rounder in shape than usual, or
an optical illusion But others continued to be-
ieve in the reality of the discovery, and that
sooner or later during total eclipse of the sun.
the missing planet would be rediscovered. l
confess that with the slight scientific knowledge
l had, l shared in this belief and hope. The
continued discovery of new asteroids only served
to encourage me in this, and in the year 1879 or
1876 | ventured to address letter on the sub
iect to Prof. j. w. Watson, director of the oD-
servatory at Ann Arbor, Mich. He was then, l
believe, searching for planet beyond Neptune,
and hoped that might receive from him some
confirmation of my faith in the existence of Vul-
can. received no answer to my letter. but
experienced a glad surprise when l read in
newspaper, in the spring of 1873, that Professor
Watson was preparing himself to search for
Vulcan during the total eclipse of the sun which
would take place on the goth Of July in that
year.
The results of that search may be briefly stated
He chose Rawlins, in Wyoming Territory,
his station for observation, and provided his
telescope with cardboard circles graduated to
fractions of q degree-something, 1 should
judge, after the method adopted by Lescarbault
and after searching the eastern side Of the sun
without result, turned his glass to the western
side and suddenly caught in his field star of the
fourth magnitude, near the star Theta Cancri
and about two degrees from the sun. having a
weI-dehned disk, whose place ard the time he
iuSGdHOly uOIeu, anu tOOh SuCu OtAeT VooCINa-
sions as were possible during the brief period of
totallty, That it was planet smaller than Mer-
curry and nearer the sun, Professor Watson en-
tertains no doubt.
During the same eclipse, Professor Lewis Swift
was observing on Pixies Peak. Colorado, with
good instrument, and he, too, gave his attention
to the rediscovery of Vulcan. He, too, saw the
star with disk, near Theta Cancri, which
Watson saw; but he states that he also saw two
other stars, of red color having large, round
and bright disks, and being, apparently, of
about the fifth magnitude. He believes In short,
that the first one the planet seen by Wat
son, and that the other two red stars were also
planets; or, to sum it up, that he saw three
small planets between Mercury and the SUM-
During the total eclipse of 1883 M. Trouvelot,
island looked for intra- Mercurial planets, and
saw two stars with well defined disks near the
sun, but they were not observed by any of the
American or English parties, and whether they
were planets or not remains undetermined.
And here the matter rests for the present.
Whether either of these stars or planets seen by
Watson and Swift was Lescarbault's Vulcan is
doubted by so eminent an authority as Mr..
Proctor, but the condolences are certainly
strong and the theory that what the French
astronomer really saw was planet, and not
mere spot, an optical illusion, has certainly
gained much if not all the ground it had lost.
That the perturbations observed in the planet
Mercury are caused by the attraction of one or
more planets nearer the sun, as stated by Lee
verrier can hardly longer be doubted. and to the
high honor of the theoretical discovery of Nep-
tune must be added the demonstration Of his
later prediction of the existence of these intra-
Mercurial planets seen by the American as
tronomer.