The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-01-10
THE PLANET VULCAN.
N. Lescarbsult's Discovery Of the Intra-Mer-
curial Planet.

were known as the ''Seven Stars"
/ To Sir William Herschel, a Hanoverian by
birth, but an Enghshman by adoption. belongs
the honor or adding the seventh planet to the
solar system. On the evening of the 18th Of
March, 1871, while sweeping the heavens with
his telescope he observed, near the feet of
Gemini, star of the fifth magnitude, having
disk well defined, which, under high power.
greatly enlarged in diameter, while stars near
by underwent no change in sizs He rightly
corjectured it to be a planet heretofore
known, and was soon able to announce his dis
covery, with calculations of its size, orbit and
| distance from the sun. This was the great
planet, known at first by the name of its dis
coverer. but now as Uranus. Subsequently it
was found to be attended by four satellites, or
moons, and as a remarkable illustration of
how one discovery in science leads on to another,
it was the irregularity perturbation in the
movements of these satellites in their orbits that
led to the marvellous discovery, by the French
| astronomer Leverrier, of another giant planet,
| removed to distance of a thousand million
of miles beyond Uranus.
This great geometer had propounded the
theory that the disturbance in the satellites of
of planet situated beyond Uranus, and by the
aid of figures he computed, after incredible labor
! the size place and distance of the supposed
| planet, When this was DONE with confidence
in his theory and calculation that approaches
the sublime, he wrote to his friend, DR.. Calls Of
| Berlin, and requested him to search for the
stranger with the powerful telescope at his com
| mand. The letter reached Berlin on the 23d
day of September, 1916, and the Prussian astron-
| omer began his search on the same evening 1t
was not a long one. He soon detected the planet
| within few seconds of the place Leverrier had
| assigned to it in his tables. The result struck
| the scientific world with establishment, and
| theoretical astronomy was placed a frrner
basis than it had before occupied; and the name
Leverrler became associated in the minds of
| men with those of Copernicus, Calico, Newton
| and Kepler.
| From the consideration of the motion of this
giant orb, revolving in space at the immense
distance of z, TAG millions of miles from the sum-
| and having period of revolution equaling 164a
| of our years, the mind of Leverrier seems to
/ have been turned back to Mercury, the planet at
| the other extreme of the system, and as yet the
| smallest of all. This, too was irregular in its
| motion, and its perturbations had for long
| time excited the attention of astronomers.
On the I'd of January, 1860, III. Leverrier read
paper before the French Academy of Sciences
ON the theory of Mercury. Between the dates
of 1857 and 1848 twenty-on transits of that
planet had been observed and recorded and upon
a careful study of these the astronomer felt
certain that the known elements of the planet
did not correspond with the records of these
| transits, and that there was an error somewhere.
Upon further computation he determined they
| could all be represented and the error elm
mated, by slightly augmenting the motion of Mer
curry at a certain part of his orbit This in
crease could be produced, either by increasing
the mass attributed to Venus one-tenth of its
value, or by supposing the existence of
one or more, small planets between
NAV and he &C
receiving the hypothesis of one such planet lay
in the fact that in order to produce the required
increase of motion in Mercury it would have to
have such mass that it must certainly have
very great brightness and it would, therefore
be visible at it's greatest elongation or distance
from the sun, during total eclipses of the lat
ter "All these difficulties" said Leverrier,
disappear, if we admit, in place of single
planet, small bodies circulating between Mercu-
ry and the SUM-" And the existence of such he
could not deem at all improbable, as ring of
such bodies, known as asteroids, occupying the
immense space between Mars and Jupiter had
already been discovered and at that time fifty
eight Of these had been identified
This number has since been increased to more
than two hundred.
M. Faye, the colleague of Leverrier, entered
heartily into the views and plans of his chief,
and elaborate arrangements were made for
searching for the hidden planets during the solar
eclipse which was to take place in July 1861 but
before that event had taken place, and indeed,
paper before the Academy it was found that in
all probability actual observation had gotten the
start of calculation
The fortunate observer proved to be man ''to
fortune and to fame unknown" NJ. Lescarbault
a physician residing at Orgeres, a little village
about sixty miles southwest of Paris He com
bined with some skill in the medical profession
strong liking for astronomy, and for many
years had been slowly accommodating knowledge
of his favorite science. By dint of rigid econ
omy, and even pfivation, he had succeeded as
early as 1898 in becoming the possessor of good
telescope having an aperature or object glass of
four inches in diameter and an piece mag
nifying $50 times. He also had finder or
smaller telescope, and had constructed in rude
way revolving cupola or dome.
His time piece was nothing more elaborate
than his old watch, and from his practice as a
physician in counting pulses beats he believed
he could make ball hung to silk cord beat
regular seconds. He had a small transit instru-
ment for observing the passage Of the sun across
the meridian, and by this he regulated his watch
and thus equipped he was accustomed to ascend
to his aerial lookout and with his eye to the
glass scan the suns face every day, sometimes
for one and sometimes for three or four hours |
as his professional duties would permit Thus oc-
cupied, weeks and months went by He saw spots |
upon the sun-but they were not planets If
any of these latter crossed the solar disk they
took advantage of his absence to make their |
transits. But patient waiting at length had it's
reward One days success atened for years
failure. On the 26th of March, l659--for that |
was the day-he was at his post. and about
o'clock in the afternoon, in putting his eye to
the glass again after few minutes rest he |
was greatly surprised to see that during the few
minutes he had been looking away black dot |
or spot had entered upon the suns western edge |
1t was small-but it was round-it had we'll |
defined disk. He ruheed his eyes, looked at his |
watch, noted the time, set his pendulum to beat |
ing seconds and trembngly looked again. The |
black dot was still there-but it had moved-its |
roundness OF disk was unchanged-and it was
really passing diagonally across the upper por-
ton of the sun. 1t was not Mercury-the al |
manac would tell him that, and so did his eye |
for he had seen Mercury projected as black |
spot upon the sum- and it was much larger than
the one he was observing. The conviction of
his mind was that at last, after so many days
and months of weary watching, he was, perhaps
alone of all the world the 1uitnaas of the actual