Proceedings of the Albany Institute. 281 



Prof. Hough called the attention of the members to an 

 alleged discovery of a new planet between the orbits of 

 Venus and the Earth. 



In the New York Post of May 6th, appeared an article 

 signed by Samuel Beswick, in which he announced that a 

 planet had been seen by him to cross the solar disk, on 

 the 12th of February, 1864, at 8 h. 20 m. a.m. No partic- 

 ulars o. this observation are given, and the whole affair 

 is stated in such a manner, as to throw doubt on the 

 authenticity of the observation. And this doubt becomes 

 stronger in attempting to verify some of his computations. 

 It was also stated that this planet would cross the solar disk 

 on the 18th of June. 



An ephemeris was given of its position from the 5th to 

 the 20th of May : this ephemeris is totally erroneous, since 

 it is impossible for any planet inside the Earth's orbit to be 

 in the position he had assigned. 



Prof. Hough also made some remarks on the supposed 

 intermercurial planet alleged to have been seen by Dr. 

 Lescarbault, on the 26th of March, 1859. The experience 

 of the past seems to show that this planet does not exist. 



Leverrier was the first to predict a planet, or zone of 

 planets, between Mercury and the Sun, from the fact that 

 the motions of Venus could not well be represented on 

 any other hypothesis. But it has recently been shown by 

 other able mathematicians, that this assumption is not 

 necessary ; but by attaching less importance to the ancient 

 observations, and introducing some slight changes in the 

 masses of Mercury and the Earth, all the modern observa- 

 tions can be well satisfied. 



At the conclusion of Prof. Hough's remarks, Dr. F. B. 

 Hough read an extract from the History of Duryea's Bri- 

 gade, giving an account of the campaign in Maryland, in 

 1862, under General McClellan. 



\ Trans. vi.~] 36 



