XXX1V REPORT—1850. 
a more congenial sphere above. Whatever cheers and enlivens our terrestrial 
paradise is derived from the orbs around us. Without the light and the heat of 
our sun, and without the uniform movements of our system, we should have 
neither climates nor seasons. Darkness would blind, and famine destroy 
everything that lives. Without influences from above, our ships would drift 
upon the ocean, the sport of wind and wave, aud would have less certainty 
of reaching their destination than balloons floating in the air, and subject to 
the caprice of the elements. ~ 
But, while a knowledge of astronomy is essential to the very existence of 
social life, it is instinct with moral influences of the highest order. In the 
study of our own globe, we learn that it has been rent and upheaved by 
tremendous forces—here sinking into ocean depths, and there rising into gi- 
gantic elevations. Even now, geologists are measuring the rise and fall of its 
elastic crust; and men who have no faith in science often learn her great - 
truths to their cost, when they see the liquid fire rushing upon them from the 
volcano, or stand above the yawning crevice in which the earthquake threatens 
to overwhelm them. Who can say that there is a limit to agencies like these ? 
Who could dare to assert that they may not concentrate their yet divided 
energies, and rend in pieces the planet which imprisons them? Within the 
bounds of our own system, and in the vicinity of our own earth, between 
the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, there is a wide space, which, according to the 
law of planetary distances, ought to contain a planet. Kepler predicted that 
a planet would be found there ; and, strange to say, the astronomers of our 
own times discovered at the beginning of the present century four small 
planets—Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta—occupying the very place in our 
system where the anticipated planet ought to have been found. Ceres, the 
first of these, was discovered by Piazzi, at Palermo, in 1801; Pallas, the 
second of them, by Dr. Olbers of Bremen, in 1802; Juno, the third, by 
Mr. Harding, in 1804; and Vesta, the fourth, by Dr. Olbers, in 1807, 
After the discovery of the third, Dr. Olbers suggested the idea that they 
were the fragments of a planet that had been burst in pieces; and, con- 
sidering that they must all have diverged from one point in the original orbit, 
and ought to return to the opposite point, he examined those parts of the 
heavens, and thus discovered the planet Vesta. 
But though this principle had been long in the possession of astronomers, 
nearly forty years elapsed before any other planetary fragment was dis- 
covered. At last, in 1845, Mr. Hencke, of Driessen, in Prussia, discovered 
the fragment called Astrzea, and in 1847 another called Hebe. In the same 
year our countryman, Mr. Hind, discovered other two, Iris and Flora. In 
1848, Mr. Graham, an Irish astronomer, discovered a ninth fragment called 
Metis. In 1849, Mr. Gasparis of Naples discovered another which he calls 
Hygeia ; and, within the last two months, the same astronomer has discovered 
the eleventh fragment, to which he has given the name of Parthenope*. If 
these eleven smal! planets are really, as they doubtless are, the remains of a 
larger one, the size of the original planet must have been considerable. 
* Ceres, 1801, Jan. 1, Piazzi. Iris, 1847, August 13, Hind. 
Pallas, 1802, March 28, Olbers. Flora, 1847, Oct. 18, Hind. 
Juno, 1804, Sept. 1, Harding. Metis, 1848, April 25, Graham. 
Vesta, 1807, March 29, Olbers. Hygeia, 1849, April 12,  Gasparis. 
Astrea, 1845, Dec. 8, Hencke. Parthenope, 1850, May 11, Gasparis. 
Hebe, 1847, July 1, Hencke. Victoria, 1850, Sept. 13, Hind, 
It is remarkable that eight of these twelve planets were discovered by astronomers, each of 
whom discovered two. Mr. Hind has now discovered three. 
