The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-01-13
THE WONDERFUL SCIENCE.
INVISIBLE WORLDS DETECTED BY
 MAIH EMATICS
Name of First Discovcrer Unknown What Is Learned Now Even Before the Telescope Distinguishes.

What Is Learned Now Even Before the Telescope Distinguishes.
 The name of the first dlscoverer of a planet is as completely lost in the dark background and abysm of time" as that of the man who first ate an oyster or sailed a boat It is even more obscure, in fact, for MT. Watts has given us a picture of the anticipator of Dando, and the rationalizers of Greek mythology attribute the invention of the sail to Daedalus. But it is hopeless to look for any reference to the first shepherd watching his flocks by night who satls- fled himself that five of the stars did not preserve the same relative position as all the cancellations seemed to do These five stars were called the wan derers,'' or planets, in opposition to the fixed stars, and the sun and moon were classed with them. When astronomy emerged from the mists of antiquity it already possessed this amount of in formation, which was unchanged for some thousand years. Gallilee was the first to whom we can assign the discov- cry of a new member of the solar sys- tem-not a planet in this case, but the four satellites of the planet Jupiter. It is amusing to recall the objections that were leveled against this first reVela- tion of his wonderful telescope.
 A typical one is quoted by Principal Lodge from the work of a Florentne astronomer, who thus argued against any attempt to increase the number or the planets-in which the sun and moon were then included: 'There are seven windows in the head-two nostrils, two eyes, two ears and mouth; so Tn the heavens there are two favorable stars two unpropitious, two luminarles ana Mercury alone undecided and indifter- ent From which and many other sim liar phenomena of nature, such as the seven metals, etc, which 1t were teul- ous to enumerate, we gather that the number of planets is necessarily seVeh'
 Besides, the Jews and other an- cient nations as well as modern Eufo- beans have adopted the division of the week into seven days and have named them from the seven planets. NOW, IL we increase the number of the planets this whole system falls to the groulld' It was an argument worthy or an ege when medical science accepted the uoc- Urine of signatures, and so held, for ln- stance. that the eyebright-Milton s eu- phrasie-was good for sore eyes, pe- cause of the black, pupil-like spot Ill us corolla. But it did not long hold out against the testimony of the telescope and no argument of the nature IS llke- ly to be used against Professor George Forbes hypothesis of the existence or an unseen planet beyond the orplt or Neptune, and separated from the sun by more than three times the distance of that planet, at present believed 10 De the outpost of the solar system. Fro lessor Forbes, who has maintained the probability of such a planet for at least twenty years has lately brought for- ward some new and stronger arguments in favor of it's existence, and in a pa per read to the Royal society of Edln- burgh went so far as to point out US probable situation. We hope that some search will be duly made for it, and that the singular apathy With WHICH Adams famous discovery of Neptnue was received by the heads of English observatories will not be repeated
 It is a truly amazing thing that as tronomers should now possess method of investigation which enables them to detect a planet by far-reaching matne- nautical analysis long before the most powerful telescope has distingulsnea It from fixed star. Professor Forbes planet may or may not exist in feallty' but the possibility of it's discovery pe- ing made by such method as he mas used was definitely established by the discovery of Neptune Up to the mld- dle of the last century such additions as had been made to the Copernlcan solar system had been solely due to the increased power of telescopes ana the diligence of their users. First the sa- stellites of already known planets were discovered. Then came in 17Sl the dls- coverv of a new planet, Uranus, the first that had been added to the num- Der of actual planets since the history of astronomy began It was due to HerscheI's sheeh perseverance amounting almost to genius-in Watch- ing the sky On the first day Of the nineteenth century Piazzi by similar perseverance and good fortune discoV- cred the first of the ''small planets or asteroids, of which we now know that at least five hundred girdle the sun De- tween the orbits of Mars and Jupiter and probably extend even beyond these limits. as Shelley foresaw with the po- ets inspiration when he spoke of
 Those mysterious stars
 Which hide themselves between the
 earth and Mars
 But the discovery of Neptune in lS4t marked d new epoch. Adams ot cam bridge and Leverrier of Paris indepen- dently worked out a problem so diffi- cult that no one had previously ven tured to tackle it, and so gave the most convincing proof of Newton's great law of universal gravitation that could be imagined Uranus, the outermost of the planets then known, had been 'go- ing wrong' for years. His place as shown by the telescope was slightly different from that which caulculation predicted that he would occupy, and the discrepancy was increasing It was very tiny difference, far too small TOT the naked eye to detect, even II there had been a second Uranus holding the o1ouIatad noSitiOn but it was very inn