ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 385 



describe an entire diameter of the sun. The doctor confessed that he had 

 made attempts to do this, but, not being a mathematician, he had not suc- 

 ceeded; and that this failure was the reason why he had delayed the announce- 

 ment of his discovery. LeVerrier having asked for the rough draught of 

 these calculations, the doctor replied: '" My rough draughts! Paper is rather 

 scarce with us. I am a joiner, as well as an astronomer. I calculate in my 

 workshop, and I write upon the boards ; and when I am done, I plane them 

 off and begin again. But I think I have preserved them." On visiting the 

 shop, they found the board, with all its lines and numbers still unobliter- 

 ated. 



The Parisian savan was now convinced that Lescarbault had really seen 

 the planet whose existence he had himself foretold. Turning to the doctor, 

 he revealed his personality, and congratulated his humble brother on the 

 magnificent discovery thus confirmed. It was the event in the Orgeres phy- 

 sician's life. Honors poured in upon him. The cross of the Legion of 

 Honor was sent to him from Paris. His name was at once enrolled in the 

 lists of the leading scientific academies of Europe, and his professional 

 brethren in Paris, anxious to testify of their regard, invited him to a public 

 banquet in Paris, in the Hotel de Louvre. Other similar offers were made him 

 from other cities in France; but he declined all invitations, pleading as an 

 excuse his simple and retired habits, and the difficulty of leaving the patients 

 under his charge. 



LeVerrier, from a careful examination of all of Lescarbault's data, con- 

 siders that the new planet to which he gives the name of Vulcan is one- 

 seventeenth of the bulk of Mercury, which is much too small to account for 

 all the perturbations of the latter. He concludes that it performs its journey 

 round the sun in nineteen days seven hours, and that half the major axis of 

 its orbit is equal to 0.1427, taking half the major axis of the earth's orbit as 

 unity. On account of its limited orbit, it would never be more than eight 

 degrees from the sun, which, with its feeble light, will account for its not 

 having been observed before. LeVerrier also conjectures that this small 

 body forms one of a group of planets between Mercury and the sun, which 

 yet remain to be discovered. 



The publication of these facts early in the past year excited the greatest 

 sensation in the scientific world, and since then astronomers of all ranks 

 have been anxiously watching for the reappearance of the new planet during 

 the time when it was likely to make its transit across the sun. No redis- 

 covery of it, however, has yet been made; but the searching of astronomical 

 records has brought to light many interesting cases, in which a round black 

 spot has been seen upon the solar disk. M. Wolff, of Zurich, has given a 

 list of not less than twenty observations, or affirmations, made since 1762, 

 that a black spot has passed across the sun ; and Mr. Carrington, of England, 

 has added other cases, the most important of which are contained in the 

 following list : 



Dlaudacber, .... 1762, end of February. 



Lichtenberg, 1703, November 19th. 



Hoffmann, 1764, beginning of May. 



Scheuten and Crefeld, . . . 1764, June 6th. 



Daugos, ... . 1793, January 18th, 2 p. M. 



Fritsch, ... . 1802, October 10th. 



Capel Lofft, . . . 1818, January 6th, 11 A. M. 



Stark, . . . 1819, October 9th. 



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